Name: Baked Eggs
Ingredients: butter; eggs; pepper; coarse sea salt; cream or rich milk; grated cheese

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Grease a shallow baking dish with butter.
Break as many eggs as needed into the dish.
Season the eggs with pepper, coarse sea salt, and small bits of butter.
Pour ¼ to ⅓ cup of cream or rich milk over the eggs.
Sprinkle ¼ to ⅓ cup of grated cheese over the top before baking, if desired.

Bake

Place in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) and bake 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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,655 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Set into a tender custard-like texture as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Cream or rich milk: Adds moisture and richness, keeping the eggs soft and creamy rather than dry.
Butter: Adds fat and flavour, and helps keep the dish from sticking to the baking dish.
Grated cheese: Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

“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.