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Dessert

Clabbered Milk

Clabbered milk is a cultured milk thickened by standing and chilled, served with sweet cream and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,920 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Clabbered Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Clabber the milk

  1. Fill a glass dish with milk and cover it.

  2. Let it stand until smooth and jelly-like; this takes 2 days in summer and 3-4 days in winter.

Chill and serve

  1. Once clabbered, chill the dish in the ice for 1 hour without disturbing it.

  2. Serve with sweet cream and a little grated nutmeg.

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 + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Souring bacteria acidify the milk, and its proteins set into a soft, jelly-like curd.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat that soften the tang of the clabbered milk.

The step that matters

Letting the milk stand until clabbered. Clabbering depends on temperature, so the time varies from summer to winter. Moving or stirring the dish can break the delicate curd before it sets, so judge by its smooth, jelly-like texture rather than the clock alone.

“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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