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Dessert

Devonshire Junket

Devonshire Junket is a sweet dessert made with sugar, sherry or brandy, milk, rennet, nutmeg, and cream.

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. Put the sugar into a glass or china dish.

  2. Pour the sherry or brandy over the sugar.

Make the junket

  1. Warm the milk and add it to the dish along with the rennet.

  2. Mix everything together.

  3. Grate a little nutmeg on top.

Finish

  1. When cold, add the scalded or whipped cream on top.

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. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves into the liquid to flavour the dish.
Sherry or brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, complex flavour to the dish.
New milk
Forms the body of the dish, setting into a soft, custard-like curd.
Rennet
An enzyme that causes the milk proteins to coagulate, setting the milk into a soft curd.
Scalded or whipped cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a creamy topping.

The step that matters

Warm the milk before adding the rennet. Rennet works best in milk that is warm but not hot. Milk that is too hot can destroy the enzyme, so the junket may fail to set into a soft curd.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, milk, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Macefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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