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Savoury Cheese Cakes

Triangular puff pastry rounds filled with a cheese and egg mixture, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Savoury Cheese Cakes

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.

Make the base

  1. Combine milk, butter, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until the butter melts and the mixture boils.

  3. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon until smooth.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Add the cheese, mustard, and pepper.

  6. Stir in the eggs one at a time.

Assemble

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Cut out 24 rounds, each 2 inches in diameter.

  3. Place the rounds on a baking sheet, about 1 inch apart.

  4. Brush with beaten egg.

  5. Add a teaspoon of the cheese mixture to the center of each round.

  6. Fold the sides to form a triangular shape.

  7. Brush lightly with egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

  2. Serve on a napkin.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness to the paste, and their beaten glaze promotes browning on the surface.
Flour
Forms the starch paste that gives the mixture body and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Cheese
Provides savory flavor and fat, and melts into the filling.
Milk
Supplies moisture that cooks into the paste and keeps it tender.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually to the hot flour paste lets each one blend in and set the mixture into a smooth, cohesive dough. Adding them all at once can leave it loose or split.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, cheese, pepper, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, cheese, pepper, egg. 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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