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Artificial Human Milk

A milk substitute made by curdling skimmed milk with rennet, adding whey, 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

Make the curd

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

  2. Stir in the Walden's Extract of Rennet.

  3. Break up the curd into small pieces.

  4. Let the curd stand for 10-15 minutes.

Make the whey mixture

  1. Place the whey in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the whey quickly.

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

  4. Add the new milk and cream.

  5. Stir well.

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
Provides the liquid and milk proteins that the rennet sets into curd.
Walden's extract of rennet
Enzyme that clots the milk proteins, separating curd from whey.
Sugar of milk
Adds sweetness, mimicking the lactose found in human milk.
New milk
Supplies the main body of liquid and milk solids for the final mixture.
Cream
Adds fat, giving a richer texture and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Heat the skimmed milk to just warm. Rennet works best within a narrow warm range. Too hot and the enzyme is destroyed; too cool and the milk sets slowly or not at all, so the curd may fail to form.

“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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