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Artificial Human Milk

A recipe for making artificial milk using skimmed milk, rennet, sugar, new milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Artificial Human Milk

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Artificial Human Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Set the curd

  1. Heat the skimmed milk to about 96°F (just warm).

  2. Stir in the Walden’s Extract of Rennet until well combined.

  3. Let the mixture set, then break up the curd into small pieces.

  4. Allow the curd to stand for 10-15 minutes until it sinks.

Prepare the whey

  1. Place the whey in a saucepan and boil quickly.

  2. Dissolve the sugar of milk in a third of a pint of the whey.

Finish

  1. Once cold, add the new milk and cream, stirring well.

  2. Make this fresh twice a day.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. 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

Skimmed milk
Forms the base that the rennet turns into a soft curd.
Walden’s extract of rennet
An enzyme that clots milk proteins, causing the milk to set into curd.
Sugar of milk
Adds mild sweetness, since it is lactose, the natural sugar in milk.
New milk
Adds liquid and moisture, giving the finished mixture its body.
Cream
Adds fat, which gives the final mixture a richer texture.

The step that matters

Warm the milk before adding the rennet. Rennet is an enzyme that clots milk best at warm temperatures. Overheating can destroy it, and milk that is too cold sets slowly or not at all, so the milk should be just warm when the rennet goes in.

“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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