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Dessert

Fondue or Cheese Pudding

A baked cheese pudding made with grated cheese, bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, milk, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fondue or Cheese Pudding

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. Mix the grated cheese, bread crumbs, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the mixture and add the butter.

  3. Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in the beaten eggs.

  4. Butter a pie dish and pour the mixture into it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until it begins to brown.

  2. Serve immediately to prevent it from falling.

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. Cheese + breadtop 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. Cheese + milktop 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 mixture and provide structure as they set, giving the pudding its lift and body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and form the soft body that holds the cheese.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and sets into the pudding as it bakes.
Milk
Provides moisture that cooks into a custard-like texture with the eggs.

The step that matters

Serve immediately after baking. Egg-set puddings lose their risen structure as they cool, because the proteins firm and steam escapes, so they sink or fall if left to wait.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, pepper, milk, butter, egg. 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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