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Cheese Fondu

A baked cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, cream, cheese, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour and hot cream, mixing constantly until thick and smooth.

  3. Add the grated cheese, salt, and cayenne, stirring well.

  4. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the beaten egg yolks.

Combine and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture quickly and lightly.

  2. Preheat and butter a baking dish, then pour in the mixture.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes until it rises to twice its original height.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam that traps air, making the soufflé rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the custard structure as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the hot cream into a stable base that holds the whipped whites.
Cheese
Adds rich savory flavor and fat to the base.
Hot cream
Provides moisture and richness, forming the thick base with the flour.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites. Whites must be beaten until stiff, then folded in quickly and lightly. Overmixing knocks out the trapped air, so the soufflé will not rise well.

“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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