Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓
Cheese Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the curds
Warm the milk and cream together.
Add a little rennet and cover the mixture.
Keep it in a warm place until it curds.
Drain and serve
Place the curds in a mold with holes to drain for about an hour.
Serve with plain cream and sprinkle pounded sugar on top.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Milk
- Its proteins set into soft curds when rennet is added, forming the body of the dish.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smoother, fuller texture to the curds.
- Rennet
- An enzyme that causes the milk proteins to coagulate into curds.
- Pounded sugar
- Adds sweetness to the finished dish.
The step that matters
Keep it in a warm place until it curds. Rennet works best at a gentle warm temperature. If the mixture is too cold, curdling is slow and incomplete; if it is too hot, the enzyme can be damaged and the curds may be weak.
“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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