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Dessert

Cheese Custard

A custard made with cheese, eggs, cream, and milk, baked in a pudding dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the curd

  1. Pour the milk into an earthen bowl and let it stand in a warm place until thickened.

  2. Once thick, pour boiling water over it, place in a cheesecloth bag, and let drain for 12 hours.

  3. Mash 1 cup of the curd through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Stir in the sweet cream, powdered sugar, beaten egg yolks, melted butter, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Line an earthen pudding dish with pie crust, pour in the cheese custard, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 40 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites lighten its texture.
Cheese
Provides the curd base and the main cheesy flavour of the custard.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the custard a smoother, softer texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves easily into the mixture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while stiff. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the custard rises and stays light instead of deflating into a dense texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, sugar, egg, cream, butter, milk):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, sugar, egg, cream, butter, 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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