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Dessert

Fried Cheese Custards

A custard made from milk, eggs, cheese, corn flour, breadcrumbs, and cayenne, steamed and then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Cheese Custards

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, whisk the eggs with the corn flour and grated cheese.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Add the breadcrumbs and cayenne, stirring until thick and creamy.

  5. Pour into well-buttered dariole cups and cover with greased paper.

  6. Steam or place in a baking tin of boiling water and cook until firm, about 4 hours.

Coat and fry

  1. Let cool, then cut into halves.

  2. Dip in flour, brush with beaten egg, and roll in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling butter or suet 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.

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 + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Set the custard into a firm structure as they cook and bind the mixture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the custard thickens and sets within.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and helps give the custard its savoury character.
Corn flour
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when cooled and cut.
Breadcrumbs
Add body to the custard and form a crisp golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling butter or suet until golden brown. The custard must be fully cooled and firm before coating, or it will break apart. Frying in very hot fat quickly browns the crumb coating and crisps the outside before the inside softens or overheats.

“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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