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Cheese Custard

A baked custard made with bread, cheese, eggs, milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

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

Prepare the bread

  1. Remove the crumb from the bread, slice it, and spread lightly with butter.

  2. Cut the bread into small squares and layer them in a baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Sprinkle each layer with cheese, salt, and a little pepper.

  2. Continue layering until all ingredients are used.

  3. Beat the eggs and add the milk, then pour the mixture over the layered ingredients.

  4. Bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) and serve.

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. 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
Set the custard as they cook, binding the milk into a soft, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that soaks into the bread and cooks into a creamy custard.
Bread
Provides the structure that soaks up the custard and holds its shape while baking.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and browns slightly on the surface as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and milk mixture over the layers. Eggs set when heated, so the custard needs to soak evenly through the bread before baking. Uneven soaking leaves dry pockets and a grainy or loose set.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cheese, egg, milk, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cheese, egg, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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