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Cheese Croustades

Cheese crostades are hollowed stale bread rounds filled with a creamy cheese mixture and baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Croustades

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 bread

  1. Cut thick rounds of stale bread and hollow them out by marking a smaller circle within the outer edge and digging out the crumb halfway through.

  2. Butter the hollowed bread rounds well and place them in a 400°F (200°C) oven until crisp and slightly browned.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together the grated cheese, 1 teaspoon of butter, cream, salt, and cayenne until creamy.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed rounds of toast with the cheese mixture and return to the oven for 4 to 5 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stale bread
Its dry, firm crumb toasts into a crisp case that holds the filling.
Butter
Coats the bread so it browns evenly and crisps as it toasts.
Grated cheese
Melts into the creamy filling that gives the crostades their rich flavor.
Cream
Adds moisture and smoothness so the cheese mixture turns creamy rather than stiff.

The step that matters

Toasting the bread shell until crisp before filling. If the shell is not dry and crisp before filling, the moist cheese mixture soaks into it and the base turns soggy. Toasting first sets a firm, sealed case.

“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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