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Dessert

Cheese Custaed

A baked cheese custard made with bread crumbs, cheese, egg, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Custaed

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix together the bread crumbs, grated cheese, baking soda, mustard, and paprika.

Make the custard

  1. Add the slightly beaten egg and the heated milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 25 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets as it cooks, binding the mixture into a custard.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and melts into the custard.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the custard body and structure.
Milk
Moistens the mixture and keeps the set custard creamy.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat. If the oven is too hot, the custard can curdle, turn spongy, or weep liquid, so keep the temperature low and bake until just set.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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