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To Pot Cheshire Cheese

A pressed cheese made from fine Cheshire or Gloucester cheese, butter, Madeira or sherry, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Pot Cheshire Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cheese

  1. Scrape down the cheese until fine.

  2. In a marble mortar, pound the cheese with the butter to a paste.

Season and pot

  1. Add the Madeira or sherry and the mace, and continue to beat until smooth.

  2. Press the mixture into a deep pot.

  3. Cover the top with clarified butter.

Serve

  1. Serve thick slices wrapped in a napkin to resemble cream cheese.

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

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

  2. Cheese + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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 or gloucester cheese
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it a firm, sliceable texture.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and smoothness, helping the cheese bind into a spreadable paste.
Malmsey madeira or sherry
Adds sweetness and a fortified wine aroma that complements the cheese.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cheese.

The step that matters

Beating the cheese to a smooth paste. Cheese pounded with butter must be worked until fully smooth so the fat and proteins combine evenly. Lumps left behind give a grainy texture rather than a uniform, sliceable paste.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, sherry. 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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