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Curds and Cream

A simple curdled milk dish served with sweet cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Curds and Cream

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 ↓

Curds and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Set the curds

  1. Stir the rennet into the warm milk.

  2. Cover and let it cool until set.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweet cream and sugar.

  2. If desired, mix in a few drops of essence of lemon and 1 teaspoon of white sugar before adding the rennet.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provides the proteins and liquid that coagulate into soft curds.
Prepared rennet
Enzyme that clots milk proteins so the milk sets into curds.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat for a smooth, creamy mouthfeel when served.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the mild, tangy flavour of the curds.

The step that matters

Stir the rennet into the warm milk. The rennet must be mixed in evenly while the milk is still warm, then the milk should be left undisturbed. Rennet enzymes clot the milk proteins into a soft gel, and stirring once the curd is forming breaks the delicate network and prevents a clean set.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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