Skip to main content
Dessert

Toasted Cheese Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, cheese, and toasted bread, baked until firm and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Toasted Cheese Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk and pour it slowly onto the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the grated cheese, seasonings, and baking soda.

Assemble

  1. Cut the toasted bread into strips.

  2. Dip each strip into the custard.

  3. Place the strips in a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Melt the butter and add it to the remaining custard.

  2. Pour the buttered custard over the bread.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the custard is firm and brown.

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

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it a soft, creamy body.
Bread
Soaks up the custard, becoming moist and tender inside while the top crisps.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, enriching the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring the scalded milk onto the eggs. Adding hot milk slowly while whisking gently raises the egg temperature gradually, so the egg proteins thicken smoothly instead of scrambling into lumps.

“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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesCheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes