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Cheese Feathers

A fried pastry made from flour, butter, cheese, eggs, and spices, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese 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 Feathers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the water and butter together.

  2. Sift the flour into the boiling mixture, stirring briskly until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Add the egg yolks, cayenne, salt, and mustard, mixing well.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture into hot suet.

  2. Fry until golden brown, then drain on paper.

  3. Sprinkle dry cheese over the top before serving.

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

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Starch that thickens the boiled water and butter into a stiff paste that holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the paste while contributing fat and emulsifying power.
Egg white
Whipped stiff and folded in, it lightens the mixture and helps the fritters puff when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the boiled base, softening the dough and contributing flavour.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and a sharp, salty taste that complements the crisp fried pastry.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white. Over-mixing deflates the whipped white, losing the air that makes the fritters light. Gentle folding keeps the bubbles intact so they puff in the hot fat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cheese, egg, 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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