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Cheese Fondu

A baked cheese fondue made with milk, butter, flour, eggs, and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Fondu

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Combine 1 pint of milk, 5 ounces of butter, and seasoning in a saucepan. Bring to a boil for 1 minute.

  2. Add 5 ounces of flour and stir over heat until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the yolks of 6 eggs and 6 ounces of grated Parmesan cheese until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Whisk the 6 egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a fondue dish, wrap a band of paper around it, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 50 minutes.

  3. Serve the fondue on a napkin.

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

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base while whipped whites provide the airy structure that lifts the fondue.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk and butter mixture into a stable base that holds the batter together.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and firm body as it melts into the base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the base a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently so the air is kept; overmixing deflates them and the fondue bakes up dense instead of light.

“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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