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 Cream Toast
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 the toast
Toast the slices of stale bread.
Cover the toasted bread with grated cheese.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, bring 1 pint of milk to a boil.
Mix 2 tablespoons of flour with a little cold water, then stir into the boiling milk.
Cook the mixture until it thickens, then season with salt and butter.
Bake and serve
Place the toast and cheese in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3-4 minutes.
Pour the cream over the toast and cheese before serving.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 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
- Stale bread
- Forms the base that holds the cheese and sauce together.
- Grated cheese
- Melts and browns on top, adding richness and savoury flavour.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
- Plain flour
- Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and a silky finish to the sauce.
The step that matters
Mix the flour with cold water before adding it to the boiling milk. Flour stirred in dry or added to hot liquid clumps as its starch grains swell unevenly. Suspending it in cold water first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly.
“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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