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Dessert

Cheese Pudding

A baked cornmeal and cheese pudding made with skim milk, water, butter, mustard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Pudding

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.

Make the cornmeal base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the skim milk, water, and salt, and bring to a boil.

  2. Sprinkle in the cornmeal while stirring continuously with a wooden spoon.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

Add the cheese and bake

  1. Stir in the cheese, dripping (or butter), and mustard.

  2. Pour the mixture onto a greased flat baking sheet and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

  2. If leftovers occur, cut into pieces and fry in hot fat.

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Thickens the milk and water into a firm, sliceable base as it cooks.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and helps the mixture set as it cools.
Skim milk
Provides the liquid that the cornmeal cooks into a thick porridge.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Simmering the cornmeal. Cornmeal settles and scorches easily on the bottom of the pan. Stirring often during the 30-minute simmer keeps the texture smooth and prevents burnt flavour.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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