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Dessert

Cheese Foudue

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Foudue

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.

Make the batter

  1. Mix scalded milk with stale bread crumbs, milk cheese, butter, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish or shells.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 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. 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. 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

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the fondue its light, puffed structure as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Yolks enrich the mixture and help bind it as it sets in the oven.
Milk cheese
Melts into the mixture, adding richness and flavor and helping it set.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and give body to the mixture.
Scalded milk
Forms the liquid base that the crumbs absorb and the eggs set into.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that give the fondue its lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense result instead of a light, puffed one.

“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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