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Dessert

Wine Cottage Cheese

A cheese made by curdling milk with sherry wine, sweetened with sugar and thickened with cream.

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

Wine Cottage Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Combine the milk and sherry wine in a porcelain saucepan and cover it.

  2. Place the saucepan in a warm area until the curd forms.

Drain and finish

  1. Once the curd has formed, pour it into a linen cloth and hang it up to drain the whey.

  2. Transfer the curd to a bowl and mix in the thick sweet cream using the back of a spoon until smooth.

  3. Stir in the granulated sugar and serve with sweetened cream.

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

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

Rich sour unskimmed milk
Provides the main body of the curd, which forms as the milk sours and thickens with the wine.
Sherry wine
Its acidity helps the milk curdle, separating solid curd from liquid whey.
Thick sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the drained curd.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tangy curd.

The step that matters

Draining the curd. Hanging the curd in a cloth lets the liquid whey drain away. If it drains too little, the cheese stays wet and loose; draining too long can leave it dry and crumbly.

“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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