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Dutch Cream Cheese

A cheese made by curdling boiled milk with egg yolks and whites, then pressing and serving with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,973 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dutch Cream Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curds

  1. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs and the whites of 3 eggs.

  2. Mix the eggs with 2 cups of buttermilk.

  3. Add this mixture to 3 quarts of boiling whole milk.

  4. Let it boil once, then remove from heat and cover.

  5. Allow it to stand until curds form.

Press and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a small fine sieve and press with a weight for 24 hours.

  2. Once set, turn it out and serve with cream and sugar.

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. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the curds set smoothly and tender.
Egg whites
Add protein that helps the curds firm up as they cook.
Buttermilk
Its acidity causes the milk proteins to curdle and separate from the whey.
Whole milk
Provides the protein and fat that form the body of the cheese.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and buttermilk mixture to boiling milk. Acid from the buttermilk must curdle the hot milk proteins evenly; adding it too slowly or unevenly can leave the curds grainy or poorly formed. Letting it boil only once helps keep the curds tender.

“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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