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Dessert

Devonshire Junket

A milk-based custard flavored with cinnamon, sugar, and brandy, set with rennet and optionally topped with clotted cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the junket

  1. Heat the milk until lukewarm.

  2. In a cup, mix the cinnamon and sugar, then pour in the brandy and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add the mixture to the lukewarm milk.

  4. Pour the milk into a serving dish and stir in the prepared rennet.

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

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, spread clotted cream on top and sprinkle with white sugar.

  2. Serve with fresh fruit if preferred.

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 base that the rennet sets into a soft, spoonable custard.
Prepared rennet
Enzyme that causes the milk proteins to coagulate into a firm curd.
Brandy
Adds a sharp, aromatic flavour that balances the sweetness of the dish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the brandy and cinnamon.

The step that matters

Stir in the rennet and leave the milk undisturbed. Rennet works best when the milk is only lukewarm and kept still. Moving or overheating the milk can break up the forming curd, so it may stay runny instead of setting firm.

“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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