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Dessert

Cheese Cake

A baked cheese and cracker mixture made with grated cheese, crackers, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Stir in the grated cheese and rolled crackers.

  3. Once the mixture cools enough not to cook the egg, stir in the egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until browned.

  2. Serve hot or allow to cool, then slice and toast.

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

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the crackers and gives the mixture its moist, creamy body.
Grated cheese
Adds fat and flavor, and its proteins help the mixture set and brown in the oven.
Rolled crackers
Absorb the hot milk and give the cake its structure and crumbly texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set into a sliceable cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg after the mixture cools. Eggs begin to set and scramble when they meet very hot liquid. Letting the mixture cool slightly before adding the egg keeps it smooth, so the egg blends evenly and bakes into a uniform cake.

“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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