Skip to main content
Drink

Artificial Human Milk

A beverage made by dissolving milk sugar in water, then adding milk and cream, and heating in a boiling bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Artificial Human Milk

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Artificial Human Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the formula

  1. Dissolve the milk sugar in the water.

  2. Mix the dissolved milk sugar with the milk and cream.

Bottle and heat

  1. Fill clean, scalded bottles with the mixture, plugging the tops with cotton wool.

  2. Place the bottles in a fish kettle on a bed of straw.

  3. Fill the kettle with tepid water and heat to boiling for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the cotton wool and cork the bottles securely.

  5. Return the corked bottles to the boiling bath for another 30 minutes.

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.

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Milk sugar
Dissolves in the water to provide sweetness and a lactose base for the formula.
Cream
Adds fat, giving the formula richness and a softer, creamier texture.
Milk
Supplies protein and liquid, forming the main body of the formula.

The step that matters

Returning the corked bottles to the boiling bath. Corking must be secure before the second boil, because the heat treatment is what makes the bottled mixture safe to keep. Loose stoppers can let contaminants back in or spill the contents.

“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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes