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Dessert

Cheese Ramekins

A baked cheese custard made with stale bread, milk, butter, Parmesan, mustard, salt, sugar, and eggs.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the base

  1. Crumble the stale bread and cover it with boiling milk. Let it soak for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the crumbs without squeezing them. Add butter, cheese, mustard, salt, sugar, and egg yolks. Beat thoroughly.

Fold and bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites carefully.

  2. Pour the mixture into buttered ramekin cups or paper cases, filling them half full.

  3. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes. 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. 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. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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 whites
Whipped to foam, they lift the mixture and give the ramekins an airy, puffed structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the custard-like base as it sets in the oven.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and a little browning as the surface cooks.
Bread
Soaked in milk, its starch gives the base body and a tender crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and adds moisture and softness to the base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten stiff hold trapped air, which makes the soufflé rise. Overmixing or deflating them with heavy stirring knocks out that air, so fold gently and bake promptly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, parmesan cheese, sugar, 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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