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Junket Custards

A set of custards made with junket tablets, milk, sugar, and optional chocolate or food coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Junket Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vanilla custard

  1. Soak the junket tablet in 1 tablespoon of cold milk until dissolved.

  2. Scald 1 quart of warm milk.

  3. Sweeten the warm milk with sugar.

  4. Add the dissolved junket tablet to the warm milk and stir well.

  5. Pour the mixture into a glass dish.

  6. Set aside in a cool place until set.

Make the chocolate custard

  1. Warm 1½ cups of milk for the chocolate custard.

  2. Add melted chocolate to the warm milk.

  3. Add sugar to the mixture.

  4. Stir in half a junket tablet dissolved in cold milk.

  5. Pour the chocolate mixture into a glass dish.

  6. Let the chocolate custard set.

Layer and serve

  1. Color 1½ cups of warm milk with food coloring for the pink custard.

  2. Add a dissolved junket tablet to the colored milk.

  3. Pour the pink custard over the set chocolate custard.

  4. Repeat with the remaining milk mixture, flavoring and sweetening as desired.

  5. Pour the remaining mixture over the pink custard.

  6. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 custard as the junket sets it into a soft gel.
Junket tablet
Rennet-based tablet that coagulates the warm milk so it sets into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the milk before it sets.
Melted chocolate
Flavors the middle layer and colors it brown.

The step that matters

Adding the junket to warm milk. Rennet works best when the milk is warm but not hot. Scalding or overheating it can weaken the enzyme, so the custard may fail to set firmly. Stir the dissolved tablet in evenly so the milk sets uniformly.

“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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