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Dessert

Coffee Junket

A milk-based pudding flavored with coffee and sweetened with sugar, set with a junket tablet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Coffee Junket

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the junket tablet in the cold water.

  2. Mix the coffee and milk together and warm it to lukewarm.

  3. Stir in the sugar until it dissolves completely.

Set and serve

  1. Quickly add the dissolved junket tablet, stirring well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a deep dish and leave it in a warm room for about 30 minutes until set.

  3. Transfer to a cool place for another 30 minutes or longer.

  4. Serve with whipped cream heaped on top, 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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Sugar + junkettop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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 provides creamy richness as it sets.
Coffee
Supplies the coffee flavour that defines the dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the coffee.
Junket tablet
Contains rennet, which curdles the warm milk so it sets into a soft custard-like texture.

The step that matters

Quickly add the dissolved junket tablet, stirring well. Rennet works quickly and is sensitive to temperature. Adding it promptly and mixing evenly ensures the milk sets uniformly instead of forming lumps or patchy curds.

“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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