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Cheese Fondu

A baked cheese and breadcrumb mixture seasoned with salt and cayenne, served hot.

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 Fondu

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, grated cheese, salt, cayenne, melted butter, and beaten eggs.

  2. Add milk gradually until the mixture reaches a cream-like consistency.

  3. Pour the mixture into a shallow buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until crisp and brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 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 mixture together and help it set as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Provides rich flavour and melts to give the dish its savoury body.
Bread crumbs
Give body and structure, absorbing the milk and butter to form a spoonable mixture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture to a cream-like consistency.

The step that matters

Add milk gradually until the mixture reaches a cream-like consistency. Bread crumbs absorb liquid at different rates, so adding milk slowly lets you stop at the right texture. Too much milk makes the dish loose and slow to set, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly.

“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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