Name: Brioche Cheese. Brioche Au Fromage.
Ingredients: ¼ of pate a brioche; 1 to 1½ pounds Gruyere cheese, diced; 2 eggs; strong buttered paper

Why it works: Gruyere cheese and egg work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Brioche Cheese. Brioche Au Fromage.

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

¼ of pate a brioche
1 to 1½ pounds Gruyere cheese, diced
2 eggs
strong buttered paper

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and shape

Prepare a quarter of pâte à brioche and let it rise.
Mix in the diced Gruyère cheese, reserving a quarter of the dough.
Shape the larger portion into a loaf on strong buttered paper and flatten the middle.
Shape the smaller portion into a round and place it on top of the larger one.

Glaze and decorate

Beat the eggs and glaze the brioche.
Cut some Gruyère cheese into leaves or hearts and decorate the top.

Bake and serve

Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for nearly three hours.
Remove from paper, place on a napkin, and serve.

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.

Gruyere cheese + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together200 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Brioche + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together159 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Brioche + gruyere cheesetop 38% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pâte à brioche: Enriched dough that rises into a light, tender, airy crumb.
Gruyère cheese: Melts into the dough, adding savory flavor, richness and fat.
Eggs: Glaze that promotes browning and gives the crust a glossy shine.

The step that matters

Baking the loaf. The long bake at 400°F browns the crust quickly, while the enriched dough and melted cheese need time to set through. The outside can darken well before the centre is done, so judge doneness by colour and firmness rather than by time alone.

“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.