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Dessert

Cheese Crackers

Cheese crackers are crackers topped with butter, grated cheese, and cayenne pepper, baked until hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Crackers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Spread a thin layer of butter on the crackers.

  3. Top with grated cheese and sprinkle with a little cayenne pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Place in the oven for a short time until hot.

  2. Serve immediately with hash or other light meat dishes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Form the base that holds the topping and bakes up crisp.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the toppings brown lightly and taste rich.
Grated cheese
Melts over the crackers and browns, adding savoury flavour and a gooey texture.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a sharp, background heat that contrasts with the rich cheese.

The step that matters

Heating until just hot. The crackers are already baked, so the oven only needs to melt the cheese and warm the butter. Overheating dries the crackers and can scorch the cheese, so watch them closely.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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