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Dessert

Devonshire Junket

A milk custard thickened with rennet, sweetened with sugar and brandy, topped with whipped or clotted cream and spiced with cinnamon or nutmeg.

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 180°F (82°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the junket

  1. Heat the milk to about 180°F (82°C).

  2. Off the heat, stir in the sugar, brandy, and rennet.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep dish and set aside until it firms up.

Finish and serve

  1. Once set, cover the surface with whipped or clotted cream.

  2. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon or nutmeg before serving.

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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Brandy + cinnamontop 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

Milk
Forms the body of the dish, setting into a soft custard-like curd.
Prepared rennet
Enzyme that coagulates the milk so it sets into a firm, tender curd.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm flavour note to the set dish.

The step that matters

Heating the milk before adding rennet. Rennet works best at a suitable temperature; milk that is too hot can weaken its action, and milk that is too cool may set slowly or unevenly. Stirring in the rennet off the heat helps the milk set smoothly without it curdling unevenly.

“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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