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Cheese Croustades

Cheese croustades are hollowed stale bread rounds filled with a creamy cheese mixture and baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Croustades

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut thick rounds of stale bread and hollow them out by marking a smaller circle and digging out the crumb.

  2. Butter the rounds well and place them in a 400°F (200°C) oven until crisp and slightly browned.

Make and bake the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, butter, cream, salt, and cayenne until creamy.

  2. Fill the hollowed rounds of toast with the cheese mixture and return to the oven for 4-5 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Thick stale bread
Forms the crisp, hollow base that holds the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the rounds brown and crisp in the oven.
Grated cheese
Melts into the filling, providing the main flavor and a creamy texture.
Cream
Adds moisture so the cheese mixture becomes smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Toasting the hollowed rounds until crisp. If the rounds are not dried and browned enough before filling, they soften when the moist cheese mixture is added. A fully crisp shell stays firm and holds the filling.

“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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