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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls wrapped in puff pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

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 ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roll out the puff pastry very thin.

Shape

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, butter, mustard, pepper, and salt.

  2. Form the mixture into balls about the size of a bantam's egg.

  3. Cover each ball with the rolled pastry, flattening one end to make them stand upright.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the balls on a baking sheet and bake until golden brown.

  2. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky outer layer that puffs and crisps around the cheese filling.
Grated cheese
Provides the main filling, adding richness and savory flavor as it melts.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the filling and helps the pastry brown and taste rich.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

The step that matters

Rolling the pastry very thin. Thin pastry bakes crisp and light, and puffs properly around the filling. Thick pastry stays dense and doughy, and may not cook through before the outside browns.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, 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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