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Devonshire Junket

A sweet milk dessert thickened with rennet and flavored with cinnamon, sugar, and brandy.

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

Prepare

  1. Mix the cinnamon and powdered sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the brandy and stir well.

Make the junket

  1. In a saucepan, heat the fresh milk until warm, then add the rennet according to package instructions.

  2. Stir the milk mixture until it begins to set.

Serve

  1. Serve with clotted 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. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Fresh milk
Its proteins form the soft set curd once rennet is added.
Rennet
An enzyme that clots the milk proteins into a soft set.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to the dish.
Powdered cinnamon
Adds warm spice aroma.

The step that matters

Warming the milk before adding rennet. Rennet is an enzyme that clots milk proteins, and heat above warm weakens it, so the milk should be only warm when the rennet goes in. If the milk is too cold, it sets slowly or not at all.

“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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