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 Dreams
Ingredients
Directions
Cut thin slices of bread.
Spread cheese on the bread as you would for cheese sandwiches.
Fry the sandwiches in butter in a chafing dish until light brown on both sides.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 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
- Slices of bread
- Forms the outer structure that crisps and browns when fried.
- Cheese
- Melts between the bread slices to bind and add richness.
- Butter
- Conducts heat to the bread and promotes golden browning and flavour.
The step that matters
Frying until light brown on both sides. Butter browns through the Maillard reaction, which gives flavour and colour. Too little heat leaves the bread pale and the cheese unmelted, while too much heat burns the butter before the centre warms.
“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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