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Method of Preserving Milk

A method for preserving milk using soda, sugar, and gum-dragons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Method of Preserving Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soda solution

  1. Dissolve 1 ounce of carbonate of soda in 1 quart of water to make a solution.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of the solution to a quart bottle nearly filled with new milk.

  3. Cork the bottle securely and place it in a vessel of cold water.

  4. Gradually bring the water to a boil, then let the bottle cool in the water.

Preserve with sugar

  1. To preserve milk with sugar, mix 4 ounces of clarified raw sugar per gallon of milk and evaporate with agitation until nearly solid.

  2. Press the mixture into cakes of suitable size.

Make the curd

  1. For curdling, heat sweetened milk nearly to boiling, then add rennet or a weak acid before it cools.

  2. Separate the curd from the whey and wash the curd in cold water.

  3. Evaporate the whey to dryness, then stir the curd over a slow fire, gradually adding dried whey and a small portion of bicarbonate of soda until melted and united.

  4. Add a small quantity of finely pulverized gum-dragons to hasten solidification.

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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Carbonate of soda
Neutralizes acidity in the milk, helping it resist souring during preservation.
Clarified raw sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the milk by drawing out water as it thickens.
Bicarbonate of soda
Adjusts acidity so the curd melts and binds smoothly into a uniform mass.
Gum-dragons
Helps the mixture set more quickly as it solidifies.

The step that matters

Heating the sweetened milk before curdling. Heating milk nearly to boiling before adding rennet or acid changes the milk proteins so they form a firmer, more even curd. Adding the coagulant too late, after the milk has cooled, can leave the curd weak and uneven.

“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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