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Cheese Fondu

A baked cheese custard made with butter, flour, milk, cheese, eggs, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese Fondu

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the flour, salt, cayenne, and milk until smooth.

  3. Simmer gently, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  4. Stir in the grated cheese until melted.

Combine and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix in the beaten eggs.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites just before baking.

  3. Pour into a well-oiled round tin, filling it halfway.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Set the custard structure and add richness as they bake.
Egg whites
Whipped air lifts the mixture so the fondue rises and becomes light.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the cheese and eggs.
Grated cheese
Provides the main flavour and melts into the sauce for richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the base before the flour is stirred in.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so the fondue will rise less and turn dense.

“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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