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Dessert

Louisiana Cream Cheese

A cheese made by draining clabber into molds and topping with sweet cream, sugar, and nutmeg.

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

Louisiana Cream Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Drain the curd

  1. Pour the clabber into a white cotton bag and hang it to drip for 2 hours.

  2. Fill perforated cheese molds shaped like stars, flowers, or hearts with the drained clabber.

  3. Let the cheese remain in the molds until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn the cheese out onto a plate.

  2. Serve the cheese in saucers, topped with rich sweet cream mixed with sugar and grated nutmeg.

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

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

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Clabber
Soured milk curd that drains into a firm, spreadable cheese with a tangy flavor.
Rich sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the topping, softening the tang of the cheese.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream topping, balancing the sour taste of the clabber.

The step that matters

Carefully turn the cheese out onto a plate. The drained curd is soft and fragile, so it can crumble or tear when removed from the molds. Letting it drain fully first gives it enough firmness to hold its shape.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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