Why it works: Milk and cream 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
Combine the new milk and cream when cold.
Add boiling water until the mixture is warm.
Allow the mixture to curdle sufficiently.
Drain and press
Line a vat with a thin wet cloth and add the curd.
Place a board on top and weigh it down with a 10-pound weight.
Let it drain for 14 hours.
If too thick, cut the curd in half with a string and dry the pieces separately.
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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Milk + creamtop 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
- New milk
- Provides the main body of the cheese curd once it curdles and drains.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which makes the finished cheese richer and softer in texture.
The step that matters
Allow the mixture to curdle sufficiently. Curd must fully separate from the whey before draining. If it is underset, the cheese will be weak and drain poorly, while curds that are too firm can make the final texture 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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