Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Fondu

A baked cheese fondue made with milk, butter, bread crumbs, cheese, eggs, and salt.

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

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 Fondu

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk and stir in the melted butter.

  2. Pour the mixture over the bread-crumbs and soak for a few minutes.

  3. Add the grated cheese, egg yolks, and salt.

Prepare the tin

  1. Butter a souffle tin and tie a band of buttered paper around it to raise the sides.

Bake and serve

  1. Just before baking, fold in the whisked egg whites.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the center is firm.

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. 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. Butter + cheesetop 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 yolks
Add richness and help bind the custard as they set.
Egg whites
Whisked and folded in, they trap air that lifts the fondue as it bakes.
Bread-crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and butter, giving the mixture body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the base, adding savory flavor and helping it set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the crumbs soak up and the eggs set in.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites just before baking. Whisked whites hold air only briefly, so folding them in late and baking promptly keeps the soufflé light and lifted instead of deflating.

“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.

More cheese fondue recipes

Baked 12au Gratin 5 See all 153 →

You might also like

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