Skip to main content
Dessert

Devonshire Junket

A milk pudding made with warm milk, rennet, scalded cream, sugar, and cinnamon, set and served with sugar or spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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. Pour warm milk into a bowl and stir in the rennet.

  2. Add scalded cream, sugar, and cinnamon on top without breaking the curd.

  3. Place the curd in a close net and hang it up to drain and shape.

  4. If using cold milk, warm it to the same temperature as new milk before adding rennet.

  5. Stir the mixture with a spoon until well combined.

Set

  1. Keep it near a warm fire or stove until it sets, but do not overheat.

Serve

  1. Once set, top with sugar, grated nutmeg, or ground cinnamon, and serve.

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. Cream + sugartop 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. Sugar + cinnamontop 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).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Warm milk
Forms the base that rennet clots into a soft, tender curd.
Calf's rennet
Enzyme that clots milk proteins, setting the milk into a curd.
Scalded cream
Adds richness and fat for a smoother, creamier texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavor of the milk.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spiced flavor to the curd.

The step that matters

Keep the milk warm but not hot while it sets. Rennet is an enzyme that clots milk proteins at a moderate warmth. Overheating weakens or destroys it, so the curd may set poorly 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.

You might also like

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