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A Rich Cream Cheese

A homemade cream cheese made by curdling fresh cream and milk with rennet and pressing the curds.

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

A Rich Cream Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream cheese

  1. Hang the cream in a wet cloth in a cool place for 6-7 days.

  2. Put the cream into a vat lined with a cloth.

  3. Press with a light weight.

  4. Turn twice a day.

Make the curd and press

  1. Warm the milk just enough to heat the cream.

  2. Add rennet to the milk.

  3. Let it stand in a warm place until it curdles.

  4. Slip the curd into a vat.

  5. Cover with rushes.

  6. Press gently to remove whey.

  7. Leave it for 40-48 hours.

  8. Turn onto fresh rushes until ready to use.

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 + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Fresh cream
Provides the fat and richness that give the cheese its smooth, creamy texture.
New milk
Supplies the protein and liquid that set into the curd.
Rennet
Enzyme that sets the milk into a firm curd so the whey can drain away.

The step that matters

Press gently to remove whey. Pressing too hard can squeeze out too much moisture and make the cheese dry and crumbly, while too little pressing leaves excess whey that spoils the 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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