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Dessert

Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are small fried balls made from grated cheese, flour, salt, cayenne pepper, egg whites, and coated with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, flour, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into small balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the balls in cracker crumbs, then dip in the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Roll again in cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in deep hot oil until golden brown.

  4. Drain on brown paper before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,860 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese
Provides the main flavor and, when melted, the rich body of the filling.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they lighten the mixture and help it puff slightly as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Act as a binding dip that helps the cracker crumbs adhere to the balls.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust during frying.
Flour
Adds body so the mixture holds its shape when rolled into balls.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that gives lift; deflating them by overmixing makes the balls dense and flat-textured once fried.

“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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