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Dessert

Devonshire Junket

Devonshire Junket is a milk-based dessert set with rennet, sugar, rum or brandy, garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 1 pint of new milk until just warm.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of rum or brandy and 6 lumps of sugar to the milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into a serving dish.

  4. Mix in 2 teaspoons of essence of rennet thoroughly.

  5. Grate a little nutmeg on top.

  6. Place the junket in a cool place to set.

Serve

  1. If available, spread a little clotted cream over the junket and sprinkle with castor sugar.

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. Rum + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

New milk
Forms the body of the junket, providing the liquid that rennet sets into a soft curd.
Essence of rennet
Enzyme that curdles the warm milk, causing it to set into a tender custard-like junket.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild, delicate flavour of the milk.

The step that matters

Mix in the rennet thoroughly. Rennet must be evenly distributed through warm milk before it sits; if the milk is too hot, the enzyme is weakened or destroyed, and if it is not mixed evenly, the junket sets unevenly in patches.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, rum, 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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