Why it works: Cream and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,399 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cream Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Make the curd
Mix the cream and milk together with the liquid rennet.
Set the mixture in a pan of hot water until it forms a thick curd.
Line a small mold with Swiss muslin and pour the curd into it.
Let it sit for 8 hours.
Press and ripen
Place a thin board on top of the curd and weigh it down with a 1 lb weight.
Leave it for one day.
Remove the cheese from the mold and wrap it in a linen cloth, changing the cloth frequently.
It will be ready to eat in four days.
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.
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Cream
- Supplies fat and richness, giving the cheese its smooth, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Provides the proteins and liquid that set into the curd.
- Liquid rennet
- Enzyme that coagulates the milk proteins, turning the mixture into a firm curd.
The step that matters
Setting the curd in hot water. The mixture must be held warm long enough for rennet to coagulate the proteins into a thick curd. If it is too cold or too short, the curd stays loose and the cheese will not hold its shape.
“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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