Skip to main content
Main

Cauliflower with Cheese

A baked cauliflower dish topped with a cream cheese sauce and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower with Cheese

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

  1. Cook the cauliflower until tender.

  2. Place the cooked cauliflower in a deep dish.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Mix the cream sauce with 1 to 2 tablespoons of grated cheese.

  2. Pour the cheese sauce over the cauliflower, covering it completely.

Finish and bake

  1. Drizzle melted butter on top.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Swiss cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together413 recipes

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Swiss cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cauliflower
Forms the bulk of the dish and holds the sauce.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness that coat the cauliflower as it bakes.
Parmesan or swiss cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Melted butter
Adds fat that promotes golden browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Cook the cauliflower until tender. Cauliflower must be fully softened before saucing, because raw or undercooked florets stay firm and tough during baking and do not absorb the sauce's flavor.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (swiss cheese, cream, sauce, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against swiss cheese, cream, sauce, butter. 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes