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Dessert

Cheese Puffs

A baked cheese puff made with grated cheese, stale bread crumbs, eggs, milk, salt, mustard, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk until dissolved.

  2. Heat the mixture, then add the cheese and seasonings while stirring constantly.

  3. Carefully mix in the beaten egg yolks and remove from heat.

Bake

  1. Fold this mixture into the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour into a buttered baking dish and bake for 15 minutes.

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

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 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

Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lift and puff the mixture as it bakes, giving the cheese puff its airy structure.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm cheese base and add richness and a tender, set texture.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the base set firmly as it cooks.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the milk to form a thick, starchy base that gives the puff body.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and forms the custard-like base with the yolks and cheese.

The step that matters

Folding the yolk mixture into the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the whites' trapped air intact; stirring or deflating them makes the puff flatten instead of rising in the oven.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, egg, milk, pepper. 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.

More cheese puff recipes

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