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 ↓
Another Junket
Ingredients
Directions
Set the curd
Warm the new milk slightly and stir in the rennet.
Make the cream topping
Sweeten the clotted cream with sugar and add the pounded nutmeg or cinnamon.
Warm the sweetened cream mixture.
Assemble and serve
Once cooled, pour it over the curd in a dish.
Add a little wine or sugar at the bottom of the dish.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- New milk
- Provides the milk proteins that the rennet sets into a soft curd.
- Rennet
- An enzyme that clots the milk into a soft, spoonable curd.
- Clotted cream
- Adds fat and richness, giving the topping a smooth, thick texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the cream topping.
- Nutmeg or cinnamon
- Adds warm aroma and flavour to the cream.
The step that matters
Warm the milk only slightly before adding the rennet. Rennet is an enzyme that clots milk best at lukewarm temperatures. If the milk is too hot, the enzyme is damaged and the curd may not set; if it is cold, setting is slow or incomplete.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits less well
- Peppermintfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar. 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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