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Cheese Sauce

A creamy sauce made with butter, flour, cream, Swiss cheese, white pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter and flour together.

  2. Add the cream and stir over medium heat until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Stir in the Swiss cheese, white pepper, and salt.

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

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

  2. Butter + swiss cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together413 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + swiss cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

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

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and adds a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and cream.
Cream
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and body to the sauce.
Swiss cheese
Melts into the sauce to add savory, nutty cheese flavor and creaminess.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and stirring over medium heat. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid evenly. Stirring keeps the sauce smooth and prevents lumps, while gentle medium heat lets it thicken without scorching or breaking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, swiss cheese):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, swiss cheese. 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.

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