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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are fried balls made from milk, butter, flour, grated Edam cheese, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

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 Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the flour into the hot butter until smooth.

  3. Add the grated cheese to the milk and stir until dissolved.

  4. Combine the cheese mixture with the butter and season with pepper and salt.

  5. Stir until thick and smooth, then pour onto a platter and set on ice.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cold, roll the mixture into small balls the size of English walnuts.

  2. Dip each ball in egg and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in hot lard until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + cheesetop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Fresh milk
Forms the liquid base that the cheese melts into, making a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cheese so the mixture sets firm enough to roll.
Butter
Combines with the flour to form a roux, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Grated edam cheese
Supplies the main cheese flavour and thickens the sauce as it melts.

The step that matters

Chilling the mixture until fully cold. The thickened cheese mixture is still soft when warm and sticks to the hands. Chilling it until firm lets the starch-thickened base set, so the balls hold their shape when rolled and coated.

“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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