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Dessert

Coffee or Chocolate Junket

A chilled dessert made by setting milk with rennet and flavored with coffee or chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Coffee or Chocolate Junket

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee junket

  1. For coffee junket, brew strong coffee and sweeten to taste.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of rennet for each pint of milk used, and mix well.

Make the chocolate junket

  1. For chocolate junket, dissolve chocolate in a little cold water over heat until thick.

  2. Add boiling milk to the chocolate mixture, sweeten to taste, and mix well.

  3. When lukewarm, add rennet and stir gently.

  4. Place in a cool area to set.

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. Coffee + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 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

Milk
Forms the body of the junket once the rennet sets it into a soft custard.
Rennet
Enzyme that curdles the milk proteins so the mixture sets into a delicate, spoonable gel.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and colour, and thickens the base when melted with water.
Strong coffee
Supplies the main flavour and aroma for the coffee version.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the coffee or chocolate flavour.

The step that matters

Add the rennet when the milk is only lukewarm. Rennet works best at about body temperature. If the milk is too hot the enzyme is destroyed and the junket will not set; if it is cold the setting is slow and weak.

“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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