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 ↓
Rush Cream Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Warm the fresh milk until it is the right temperature to mix with the cream.
Combine the cream, warm milk, sugar, and rennet.
Set the mixture near the fire until the curd forms.
Shape and ripen
Fill a vat made of wheat straw or rags sewn together with the curd.
Place a square of straw or flat rags under the vat and cover it with another. The vat should be open at the top and bottom.
The next day, remove the cheese and let it ripen.
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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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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
- Fresh cream
- Provides the fat that gives the cheese a rich, soft texture.
- New milk
- Supplies the protein and liquid that form the curd with the rennet.
- Rennet
- Enzyme that coagulates the milk and cream into a set curd.
The step that matters
Set the mixture near the fire until the curd forms. Rennet works within a narrow warm range; too cold and the curd sets slowly or not at all, too hot and the enzyme is destroyed, leaving a loose, weak curd.
“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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