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Cheese Puff

A baked sandwich of bread, cheese, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese 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 Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Butter both slices of bread liberally and place one in the bottom of a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle half of the grated cheese over the buttered bread, along with salt, cayenne pepper, and baking soda.

  3. Add the second slice of buttered bread on top and sprinkle the remaining cheese, seasoning as before.

Make the custard

  1. Whip the eggs until frothy and beat them into the milk.

  2. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the bread and cheese layers.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown and 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 + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a custard that binds the bread and cheese together as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, moistening the bread and keeping the puff tender.
Bread
Provides the structure and soaks up the egg custard as the dish bakes.
Cheese
Adds fat and rich flavour, and melts through the layers.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the dish and help it rise and brown.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Eggs set as they heat, so baking too long turns the custard firm and rubbery, while too short leaves it wet in the middle.

“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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