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Dessert

Cheese Fondue

A creamy cheese soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, parmesan, mustard, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Fondue

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the flour smoothly with the melted butter.

  3. Add the milk and parmesan cheese, cooking over low heat until creamy.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Stir in the yolks of the eggs, mustard powder, pepper, and salt.

Bake

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared soufflé dish.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Whipped whites lift the mixture and give it an airy, light structure as they set.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and body, and melts into the milk to make the base creamy.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and carries flour so it blends smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a stable, creamy base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the cheese melts into.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air only while whipped; stirring them in harshly deflates the foam, and the soufflé will rise less and turn dense after baking.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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