Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Junket
Ingredients
Directions
Make the junket
Stir the powdered sugar and liquid rennet into the milk.
Let the mixture sit in a warm room until it sets like custard.
Once set, place it in the refrigerator until needed.
Serve
Serve with sugar and cream from the same bowl.
Add fresh fruit before it fully congeals, if desired.
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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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
- Milk
- Provides the proteins that coagulate into the soft, custard-like set.
- Liquid rennet
- Enzyme that causes the milk proteins to clot and set into a curd.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the cold milk.
The step that matters
Let the mixture set undisturbed. Rennet forms a delicate curd as it works. Moving or jostling the mixture while it sets can break that network, leaving a grainy or weak texture.
“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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