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Baked Cheese

A baked dish of grated cheese layered with crushed crackers, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Baked Cheese

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Cheese

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a baking pan, melt the butter.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer crushed crackers and grated cheese in the pan.

  2. Sprinkle sugar, salt, and pepper over each layer.

  3. Repeat layers until the mixture is 1½ inches thick.

  4. Add enough sweet milk to moisten the layers.

  5. Bake until firm enough to cut into 2½-inch squares.

  6. Serve hot on toast.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Provides the main body, rich flavor, and melted structure once baked.
Snow-flake crackers
Supply bulk and a starchy base that soaks up milk and holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the bake brown and taste rich.
Sweet milk
Moistens the crackers so the layers set into a soft, cohesive mass.

The step that matters

Add enough sweet milk to moisten the layers. Too little milk leaves dry, crumbly crackers that will not bind, while too much makes the bake soggy and slow to firm up. Moisture should soften the crackers evenly so the layers set when baked.

“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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