Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Assemble
Butter a basin and layer thin slices of stale bread on the bottom.
Add a layer of cheese and sprinkle with mustard.
Repeat the layers until the basin is full.
Steam
In a bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs, then pour over the layered bread and cheese.
Steam the pudding for 1 hour.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the milk custard so the pudding firms up as it cooks.
- Cheese
- Provides rich flavour and fat, and melts into the custard.
- Stale bread
- Soaks up the custard and gives the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Forms the custard that moistens the bread and binds the layers.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, egg, butter, bread, milk):
- Potatofits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, butter, bread, milk. 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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