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German Cheese Butter

A butter flavored with grated German cheese, paprika, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and swiss cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 65 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

German Cheese Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Remove from the stove and gradually add the grated German cheese, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the paprika and white pepper, and continue stirring until the mixture is cool and creamy.

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. Cheese + swiss cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + swiss cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together413 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Swiss cheese + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and richness, and sets to a smooth, spreadable texture as it cools.
German cheese
Adds savory flavor and body, and melts into the butter to thicken the spread.

The step that matters

Adding the cheese off the heat. Cheese added to very hot butter can clump, turn grainy, or let fat separate, because heat tightens the cheese proteins. Removing the pan from the stove and stirring constantly lets the cheese melt gently into a smooth, uniform mixture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cheese, swiss cheese):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, swiss cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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