Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Delicious Junket
Ingredients
Directions
Make the junket
Warm the milk on the stove until it boils.
Pour the milk into a glass or china bowl.
Stir in the rennet, powdered sugar, and brandy.
Let it stand until cold.
Serve
Serve with sugar and rich 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.
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Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,738 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- New milk
- Forms the body of the junket as rennet sets it into a soft curd.
- Prepared rennet
- Enzymes coagulate the milk proteins, causing it to set into a soft custard-like curd.
- Powdered loaf sugar
- Sweetens the junket and balances the mild, tangy flavour of the milk.
- Pale brandy
- Adds aroma and a light flavour to the set milk.
The step that matters
Let it stand until cold. The junket sets while the milk stays undisturbed and cools. Moving or stirring it during setting breaks the forming curd, so it stays runny instead of firm.
“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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