Name: Albany Cheese
Ingredients: ½ pound grated dairy cheese; ¼ pound sweet butter; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon sugar; ½ teaspoon mustard; a dash of cayenne pepper; 1 tablespoon brandy; paprika for sprinkling

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Albany Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese spread

Mix together the grated cheese, sweet butter, salt, sugar, mustard, cayenne pepper, and brandy until creamy.

Shape and serve

Shape the mixture into balls or serve it in a dish.
Sprinkle with paprika 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.

Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Dairy cheese: Provides the main body, rich flavour and savoury character of the spread.
Sweet butter: Adds fat for a creamy, smooth texture and helps bind the mixture together.
Brandy: Adds aroma and a little flavour depth to the spread.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, sugar, pepper, brandy):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardthe original
Potatofits about as well
Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, sugar, pepper, brandy. 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.