Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Fondu Au Gratin

A baked cheese fondue with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, butter, and cheese, topped with cracker crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Fondu Au Gratin

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 custard

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in hot milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk while heating.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, melted butter, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  4. Beat in the grated cheese until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish.

  2. Top with dry cracker crumbs and dot with butter.

  3. Dust lightly with cayenne pepper or paprika.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, covered, for 15 minutes.

  5. Uncover and brown lightly before serving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk to give the mixture body and a soft, tender crumb.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and melts into the custard for a creamy texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the bread crumbs absorb and the eggs set within.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the custard and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Uncover and brown lightly before serving. Eggs set when heated, so baking covered gently cooks the custard through. Uncovering at the end lets the surface brown, but overbaking can make the eggs curdle and turn grainy.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes