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Cheese Fondu

A melted cheese mixture with butter, milk, breadcrumbs, mustard, cayenne, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cheese Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the milk, bread crumbs, cheese, mustard, and cayenne. Stir constantly.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the beaten eggs.

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

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 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

Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give it rich flavor and a creamy, stringy body.
Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they set gently with heat, giving the fondue body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the milk and cheese into a smooth mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cheese melts into and keeps the fondue smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for smooth texture and richness, helping the cheese blend without clumping.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs just before serving. Eggs set when heated, so adding them too early or letting the mixture boil can make it curdle or grainy. Adding them last and keeping the heat gentle lets them thicken the fondue smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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