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Dessert

Ramakins

A baked cheese custard made with Cheshire and Gloucester cheeses, butter, eggs, and a soaked French roll crumb.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ramakins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Crumb or grate the Cheshire and double Gloucester cheeses.

  2. Beat the cheese with the butter to form a paste.

  3. Add the egg yolks and soaked French roll crumb, mixing well.

Fill and bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites and season with salt, pepper, and pounded mace.

  2. Fill small paper pans or saucers half full with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a Dutch oven until hot and set.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cheshire and double gloucester cheeses
Provide the main savoury flavour and body of the custard.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and helps the cheese blend into a smooth paste.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture when heated.
French roll crumb soaked in hot milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the ramekins light and tender.
Egg whites
Whipped air and structure that lift the mixture and help it puff while baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the ramekins lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the mixture bakes up light instead of dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, egg, milk, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, egg, milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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