Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Curds and Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare 1 quart of milk and let it stand until just before serving.
Drain the curds
Carefully lift the curd with a skimmer and place it on a sieve.
Allow the whey to drain off.
Serve
Transfer the curds to a dish, surround them with cream, and cover with powdered sugar.
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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Sugar + creamtop 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
- Forms the curds that make up the body of the dish.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, fatty contrast to the curds.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves easily over the cold curds.
The step that matters
Carefully lift the curd with a skimmer. Curds are delicate and break apart easily when disturbed. Lifting gently keeps them in soft pieces, while the whey drains away from them.
“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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