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Dessert

Cheese Custard

A custard made with bread crumbs, cheese, milk, butter, salt, cayenne pepper, and eggs, baked until firm.

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the bread crumbs and grated cheese in a bowl.

  2. Add the hot milk, melted butter, salt, and cayenne pepper; stir well.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and bake until firm.

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 into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and give the custard body and a soft texture.
Hot milk
Supplies the liquid that keeps the custard moist and tender.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and some richness to the custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Bake until firm. Egg proteins set as the custard heats, so it needs only enough baking to firm up. Overbaking makes the eggs tighten and weep, leaving the custard dry and rubbery.

“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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