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Baking

Creamed Beans

A baked bean casserole with butter, flour, milk, eggs, pepper, salt, optional cheese, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Creamed Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. Boil the beans until they are broken into pieces.

  3. Rub the beans through a sieve.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and stir in the milk until thick and smooth.

  2. Mix the bean pulp with the sauce, then add the beaten eggs, pepper, and salt. Beat the mixture well for a minute.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Top with grated cheese and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned and serve immediately.

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. Cheese + breadtop 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

Beans
Form the body of the dish, giving it bulk and a soft, creamy texture once sieved.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the mixture and give it a light, custard-like structure.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth sauce that holds the bean pulp together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps form the smooth base of the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture well after adding the eggs. Thorough beating distributes the eggs evenly through the bean and sauce mixture, so the dish sets smoothly and uniformly in the oven rather than in uneven pockets.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

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