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Cheese Pudding

A baked bread and cheese custard served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Cover the bottom with grated strong cheese.

  3. Layer sliced bread and grated cheese alternately in the dish.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, red pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour the custard over the bread and cheese layers.

Bake and serve

  1. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes and serve very hot.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 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
Egg proteins set as the custard bakes, holding the pudding together.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and sets softly.
Bread
Absorbs the custard and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Strong cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and melts into the layers as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the custard over the bread and cheese layers. The bread needs to soak up the custard evenly before baking. Dry patches stay firm and tasteless, while a soggy base can make the pudding uneven when the egg sets.

“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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