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Junket Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, and junket tablets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Junket Ice Cream

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Junket Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crush the junket tablets and dissolve them in the cold water.

  2. Heat the milk, cream, and sugar until barely lukewarm.

Set the mixture

  1. Stir in the dissolved junket mixture and pour into a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture sit in a warm room until it jellies, without disturbing it.

Freeze

  1. Once cold, pour into a freezer, add vanilla, and freeze.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Junket + sugartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Junket + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Rich milk
Forms the base that the junket enzyme sets into a soft, custard-like curd.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a creamier frozen result.
Junket tablets
Contain rennet, which causes the milk to coagulate and jelly without cooking.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.
Vanilla extract
Provides the main aroma of the finished ice cream.

The step that matters

Keep the milk barely lukewarm and leave it undisturbed. Rennet works best at gentle warmth, and very hot milk can weaken or destroy it. Stirring or moving the mixture while it sets breaks up the forming curd, so it may not jelly properly.

“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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