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Soft Cheese

A creamy cheese mixture made with milk, butter, bread crumbs, cheese, egg, pepper, and salt.

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

Soft Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the milk, butter, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs, grated cheese, and beaten egg, and mix well until combined.

  3. Cook until the mixture thickens, stirring frequently.

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

Milk
Provides the liquid base that the bread crumbs soften and the cheese melts into.
Egg
Sets when heated, binding the mixture and giving it a firmer, sliceable body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and swell, thickening the mixture and adding body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the mixture, adding savoury flavour and richness.
Butter
Adds fat, contributing richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens, stirring frequently. The egg proteins set with heat and can scramble or turn grainy if the mixture overheats or sits unstirred. Frequent stirring over gentle heat keeps it smooth while the bread crumbs absorb the liquid and thicken it.

“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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