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Dessert

Devonshire Junket

A milk pudding made with milk, brandy, sugar, rennet, topped with thick cream and garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Devonshire Junket

Ingredients

Directions

Make the junket

  1. Warm the milk until it is blood-warm.

  2. Pour the milk into a deep dish and add the brandy, sugar, and rennet.

  3. Stir the mixture well and cover it until it sets, about 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Once set, spread thick cream over the top.

  2. Garnish with grated nutmeg and a sprinkle of sugar before serving.

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

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

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Whole milk
Forms the body of the junket; its proteins set into a soft curd with rennet.
Prepared rennet
Enzyme that curdles the milk, turning it from liquid into a set, spoonable custard.
Brandy
Adds a light aroma and warmth in small amounts to the set dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the mild, milky flavour of the set milk.

The step that matters

Warm the milk to blood-warm. Rennet works best at about body temperature. If the milk is too hot, the enzyme can be damaged and the junket may not set; if it is too cold, setting is slow and weak.

“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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