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Baked Ghbese

Small baked cheese pastries made from a stiff paste of butter, hot water, cheese, flour and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and gruyere cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 93 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Baked Ghbese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the butter in hot water.

  2. Melt the American and Gruyere cheese together.

  3. Stir the melted cheese and butter mixture until creamy.

  4. Add enough sifted flour to make a stiff paste.

  5. Mix in the beaten egg yolks.

Shape and bake

  1. Mould the mixture with two buttered tablespoons.

  2. Place the mixture on greased paper.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until slightly brown.

  4. Brush the tops with beaten egg whites.

  5. Return to the oven for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, dust with pepper, and fill the center with grated cheese.

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. Cheese + gruyere cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Adds fat and richness, helping the paste stay tender and creamy.
American cheese
Melts smoothly to give the mixture a creamy, binding base.
Gruyere cheese
Adds deeper cheese flavor and helps the mixture set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides structure so the mixture holds its shape as a stiff paste.
Egg yolks
Enrich the dough and add richness and binding to the paste.
Egg whites
Brushed on top, they help the surface set and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to make a stiff paste. Too little flour leaves the mixture soft and slack, so it will not hold its shape; too much makes it dry and tough. Adding flour gradually until the paste is firm keeps the texture right.

“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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