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Dessert

Devonshire Junket

A custard-like dessert made with milk, cream, sugar, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, wine, and rennet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Devonshire Junket

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour new milk into a wide shallow dish and let it cool.

  2. Mix rich cream with pounded sugar, brandy, and nutmeg, then pour over the cooled milk.

  3. Alternatively, mix rennet with new milk, sweeten thick cream, add cinnamon, and heat until scalding.

  4. Once cooled, pour the sweetened cream over the curd and add wine and sugar to the bottom of the dish.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

New milk
Forms the curd with rennet and gives the dish its body.
Rich cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Rennet
Enzyme that clots the milk into a soft curd.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the dish and balances the dairy.
Brandy
Adds a warm alcohol aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring the cooled sweetened cream over the curd. The curd is delicate and has only partly set, so pouring gently keeps it from breaking up. Disturbing it early leaves a grainy, watery texture instead of a smooth set junket.

“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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