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Butter and Cheese

A homemade cheese made from milk, rennet, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Butter and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 100°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the curd

  1. Heat milk to 80°F to 85°F using a double boiler or a tin pan over hot water.

  2. Add rennet and let it coagulate for 30 to 35 minutes.

  3. Let it stand for 40 minutes, then cut the curd.

  4. Heat the whey gradually to 100°F, working the curd with clean hands until it separates.

  5. Let it sit until the whey becomes slightly sweet, then drain off the whey.

  6. For immediate use, mix ¾ pound of salt with 25 pounds of curd.

  7. For long-term storage, use ½ pound of salt for 15 to 16 pounds of curd.

Press and cure

  1. Wring out a square of strong cloth in whey, place it over a hoop, and add the curd, pressing down evenly.

  2. Apply pressure gradually and leave in the press overnight.

  3. The next morning, turn and press again, then rub with melted butter and place in a cool, dry room to cure, turning frequently.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the body of the cheese, with its proteins setting into curd.
Rennet
Enzyme that clots the milk into a firm curd so it can be cut and separated from whey.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture, firms the curd, and slows spoilage during aging.
Melted butter
Coats the rind, adding fat and helping protect the surface during curing.

The step that matters

Heating the whey gradually to 100°F while working the curd. Heating too fast can toughen the curd and expel moisture unevenly, while gentle warming lets the curd firm and release whey slowly, giving a smoother, more consistent texture.

“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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