Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cream Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the curd
Combine new milk and cream when cold.
Add boiling water until the mixture is warm.
Let it curdle, then place a wet cloth in a vat.
Drain
Transfer the curd into the vat and place a board on top.
Add a 10-pound weight and let it drain for 14 hours.
If too thick, cut the curd with a string and dry 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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- New milk
- Forms the bulk of the curd, which sets into the body of the cheese.
- Cream
- Adds fat, giving the cheese a richer, softer texture.
- Rennet
- Enzyme that causes the milk to coagulate into curd.
- Egg yolks
- Adds fat and richness, softening the texture of the cheese.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the dairy.
The step that matters
Drain under weight. Draining for the full time under the stated weight controls moisture, which determines whether the cheese is soft or firm. Too much moisture left in the curd makes it weak and runny, while over-draining makes it dry and 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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