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Stilton Cheese

A traditional English blue cheese made from milk, cream, salt, and rennet, aged in a vat.

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

Stilton Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk and curd

  1. Mix 12 pints of sweet cream with a kettleful of boiling water in a small tub.

  2. Pour the mixture into a cheese tub with 15 gallons of warm milk.

  3. Add rennet when the temperature reaches 90°F (32°C).

  4. Break the curd slightly once the milk has coagulated.

  5. Cover the curd with a thin cloth.

  6. Drain off the whey.

  7. Place the curd in a bag or net.

  8. Let it hang until it stops dripping.

  9. Cut the curd into pieces.

  10. Submerge the pieces in cold water for 1 hour.

  11. Remove the pieces from the water.

  12. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt on them.

Press and age

  1. Place the salted curd into a vat.

  2. Break the top slightly to help it join.

  3. Apply a small weight to prevent excess whey from escaping.

  4. Turn the cheese every 3 hours on the first day.

  5. Turn the cheese three times a day for 3 days.

  6. Change the cloth each time.

  7. Remove the cheese from the vat after 3 days and wrap it tightly.

  8. Change the bandage every 24 hours.

  9. Rub the cheese with a little salt before bandaging.

  10. Wipe and turn the cheese daily for a considerable time.

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 + creamtop 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

Milk
Forms the body of the cheese, which sets into curd when rennet is added.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished cheese a smoother, creamier texture.
Rennet (in the method)
Coagulates the milk into a curd that can then be cut, drained and shaped.

The step that matters

Add rennet at 90°F (32°C). Rennet works best within a set temperature range; if the milk is too cold or too hot, coagulation is slow or weak and the curd may not set firmly.

“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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