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 ↓
Coffee Junket
Ingredients
Directions
Make the coffee
Make strong coffee by pouring boiling water over pulverized coffee.
Set the junket
Combine the clear coffee and sugar with the milk in a bowl.
Heat the mixture until lukewarm and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Add the dissolved junket tablet and mix well.
Serve
Spoon the mixture into serving dishes and top with whipped cream.
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.
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Sugar + junkettop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together82 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Junket + creamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together64 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the body of the dessert, setting into a soft, delicate custard.
- Junket tablet
- Contains rennet, an enzyme that curdles the warm milk into a soft set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the milk base and balances the bitterness of the coffee.
- Strong coffee
- Adds the main coffee flavor and a slightly bitter aroma to the milk.
- Whipped cream
- Adds richness and a light, creamy contrast to the soft set.
The step that matters
Heat the mixture only until lukewarm before adding the junket tablet. Rennet is an enzyme that is weakened or destroyed by high heat. If the milk is too hot when the tablet goes in, the mixture may fail to set 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.
You might also like
Coffee Ice Cream91 recipes
Coffee Custard27 recipes
Junket22 recipes
Coffee Cake21 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.