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Baked Eggs with Cheese

A baked dish of eggs topped with cheese, cream, and seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, mustard, and buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Eggs with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish and cover the bottom with a layer of grated cheese.

Assemble

  1. Break 6 eggs on top of the cheese layer.

  2. Cover the eggs with another layer of cheese and dust with salt, pepper, and paprika.

  3. Pour ½ cup of cream over the dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs rolled in melted butter.

  4. Dust the top with salt, paprika, and a little mustard.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a firm, custard-like structure as they cook, holding the dish together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the eggs tender rather than dry.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns, adding fat, savory flavor, and a golden top.
Bread crumbs rolled in melted butter
Toasts in the oven, adding a crisp, golden topping and contrasting texture.

The step that matters

Bake for about 30 minutes. Eggs set from the edges inward as their proteins coagulate. Overbaking squeezes out liquid and turns them rubbery, so check for a just-set centre.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, egg, pepper, cream, bread. 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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