Skip to main content
Main

Devonshire Cream

A traditional method for making cream by straining milk and allowing it to separate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Devonshire Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the milk into a thick earthenware pan or crock that has been prepared by soaking in cold water and scalding with skimmed milk.

  2. If using tin pans, scald them in hot bran and let them sit with the bran for 24 hours.

Make the cream

  1. Set the strained milk in a cool room for 9 to 14 hours, depending on the temperature.

  2. Carefully move the pan to a warm spot and heat slowly for 30 minutes until the cream shrinks and the milk simmers.

  3. Return the pan to the cool room for about 10 hours.

  4. Skim off the cream to use on fruit or preserves.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the fat and proteins that form the thick, rich cream layer when heated and rested.

The step that matters

Heating slowly in the warm spot. Gentle, even heat lets the cream rise and thicken without scorching the milk on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes