Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Fondue

A cheese fondue made with milk, bread crumbs, cheese, eggs, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondue

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk with a pinch of baking soda.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs and grated cheese until melted.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix them into the cheese mixture.

  4. Add butter, pepper, and salt, stirring until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve warm, dipping bread into the fondue.

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

Eggs
Bind the cheese mixture and help it set into a creamy, cohesive texture.
Dry cheese
Provides the main flavor and melts into the sauce for a rich, stretchy texture.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the mixture and add body to the fondue.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the cheese and keeps the sauce smooth.

The step that matters

Stir in the bread crumbs and grated cheese until melted. Cheese can turn grainy or stringy if overheated or heated too quickly, because its proteins and fats separate. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring steadily helps the cheese melt into a smooth sauce.

“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 fondue recipes

Baked 12au Gratin 5 See all 153 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes