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Toasted Cheese

A simple dish of melted cheese, cream, butter, and egg, browned under a broiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Toasted Cheese

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Toasted Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cheese, cream, and butter.

  2. Heat over medium, stirring until boiling.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the whisked egg.

  4. Return to heat and stir until just before boiling.

Brown and serve

  1. Pour into a dish and brown under a broiler.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Double gloucester cheese
Melts into a smooth sauce and browns to give the toast its savory flavor.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the cheese melts smoothly rather than turning grainy.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the mixture silky and helps it brown evenly.
Egg
Thickens the mixture as it heats, giving it a set, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Return to heat and stir until just before boiling. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the mixture boils after the egg is added it can curdle and turn grainy. Keeping it just below boiling lets the egg thicken it 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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