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Dessert

Cheese Custard, Moulded

A custard made with egg yolks, whites, milk, cream, cheese, and spices, baked in molds and garnished with ham and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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, Moulded

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs with the whites of 2.

  2. Add ½ cup milk, ¼ cup cream, a dust of cayenne, and 2 ounces of grated cheese.

  3. Mix in 1 tablespoon of bread crumbs soaked in ¼ cup rich white sauce.

  4. Pour the mixture into a saucepan.

  5. Stir until it thickens.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Cool slightly.

Mould and steam

  1. Fill buttered bombe molds with the mixture.

  2. Garnish the bottoms with chopped ham.

  3. Steam the molds for about 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn out the bombes onto a bed of spinach on a serving dish.

  2. Fill the center with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Coat the eggs in thick white sauce flavored with cheese.

  4. Serve very hot.

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

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks and whites
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure when heated.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the custard set with a rich texture.
Milk and cream
Provide moisture and a tender, smooth texture to the custard.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the white sauce and add body to the custard mixture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Give the centre of the mould a firm, sliced filling.

The step that matters

Steaming the molds gently. Egg-based custards become grainy, watery or spongy when cooked too hot or too fast. Steaming at a gentle heat lets the eggs set evenly and keeps the texture smooth.

“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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