Cheesy goodness?

Growing up, my mom made the BEST scalloped potatoes: cheesy, soft potatoes accompanied by ham and, later, broccoli.  I could never understand why she added the broccoli - I felt it interrupted the basic purity of the dish.  

(Now that I am a functioning adult with a husband and child to cook for I understand the need to get veggies in whenever and wherever possible.  I don't always succeed, but I understand why they are important.)

Last night I made...a dish.  I hate to call it scalloped potatoes but that is what the recipe I used called it.  Um.  Well.  Instead of making up a cheese sauce and pouring it over the potatoes this recipe told me to layer the potatoes, cheese, cream (milk) and butter.  I figured they would meld in the oven and become something similar to the creamy goodness I knew as a child.

(Minus the broccoli because Dear Hubby won't go near the stuff.)

When the dish came out of the oven (after having been left there an extra 25 minutes because the potatoes were still raw) my hopes of creamy childhood goodness were dashed.

Nothing had melded.  Everything was still separate.  The cheese was mostly melted but it refused to adhere to the potatoes.  The milk was still...wet.  I thought it would absorb or evaporate or something!

Distress.

Next time I try scalloped potatoes I will look for a recipe that makes the cheese sauce up ahead of time.

Come to think of it, perhaps I'll just ask my mom.