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Cheese Fondu

A baked bread and cheese dish where bread and cheese are layered and set in an egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Cheese Fondu

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. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Arrange the bread cubes and cheese in layers, with bread on top.

  3. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  4. Add the milk, melted butter, salt, and cayenne to the eggs.

  5. Pour the egg mixture over the bread and cheese.

  6. Let it stand for 20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until firm, about 35 to 40 minutes for a large dish, or 20 minutes for individual servings.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  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
Set the custard so the bread and cheese bind together when baked.
Bread
Soaks up the egg mixture, giving the dish its soft, pudding-like body.
Cheese
Adds richness and flavor, and melts into the custard as it bakes.
Milk
Thins the egg mixture so it soaks evenly into the bread.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Bake until firm. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the dish too early leaves the custard loose, while overbaking makes it dry and grainy.

“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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