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Cheese Ramekins

Cheese ramekins are baked custard of grated cheese, bread crumbs, milk, eggs, salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Ramekins

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.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the grated cheese, bread crumbs, milk, salt, and paprika.

  2. Stir and cook until well mixed.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the yolks of the eggs.

Bake

  1. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish or ramekin dishes.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes for small dishes or 20 minutes for large ones.

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

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

  2. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft cheese
Melts into the sauce and gives the ramekins their rich, savory flavor.
Soft bread crumbs
Thicken the milk mixture and give the cheese custard a tender body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the crumbs and cheese soften into a custard.
Eggs
Set the custard when baked and, with the whipped whites, lift it to a light texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that makes the mixture rise in the oven. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the ramekins puff instead of turning dense.

“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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