Name: Junket
Ingredients: 1 pint of milk; 1 teaspoon of sugar; 1 tablespoon of junket powder or essence of rennet

Why it works: Sugar and junket work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 82 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Junket

Ingredients

1 pint of milk
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of junket powder or essence of rennet

Directions

Heat the milk to 98°F (37°C).
Pour the milk into a glass bowl.
Add the sugar and then the junket powder or essence of rennet.
Allow it to stand undisturbed until set, about 1.5 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + junkettop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together82 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + junkettop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together103 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Milk: Forms the body of the dessert, and the rennet or junket powder curdles it into a soft set.
Junket powder or essence of rennet: Contains rennet enzymes that coagulate milk proteins into a soft, sliceable custard-like set.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to the mild, milky flavour of the set dessert.

The step that matters

Keep the milk warm and undisturbed while it sets. Rennet works best at lean body temperature, around 98°F (37°C). If the milk is too hot, the enzyme is destroyed; if too cold, setting is slow. Moving the bowl during setting breaks the forming curd, so it stays loose.

“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.