Skip to main content
Dessert

Devonshire Junket

A chilled milk dessert thickened with rennet, flavored with cinnamon, sugar, and brandy, topped with clotted cream and sprinkled sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Heat the milk until lukewarm.

  2. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a cup, then pour the brandy into the cup and stir until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Add the mixture to the milk and stir in the rennet.

  4. Pour the mixture into a serving dish.

  5. Let it sit for 3 to 4 hours until firm.

Finish and serve

  1. Spread clotted cream on top.

  2. Sprinkle with white sugar.

  3. Serve with fresh fruit if desired.

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. 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. Milk + brandytop 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

Milk
Forms the body of the junket, which sets into a soft custard once rennet is added.
Prepared rennet
Enzyme that curdles the milk proteins so the mixture sets into a firm, spoonable dessert.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the cinnamon and sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the junket and dissolves into the brandy-cinnamon mixture before it is added to the milk.

The step that matters

Stirring in the rennet. Rennet must be evenly distributed through the milk while it is still lukewarm. Enzyme activity depends on temperature, so milk that is too hot can inhibit setting or the junket may fail to firm up 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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipes