Skip to main content
Dessert

Egg Junket

A light gelatin dessert made with eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, junket tablet, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Egg Junket

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until very light and then stir them together.

  2. Heat the milk until barely lukewarm.

  3. Dissolve the sugar in the warm milk and add the vanilla.

  4. Pour the milk mixture slowly over the eggs.

Set

  1. Dissolve the junket tablet in cold water and stir it into the mixture.

  2. Set aside in a cool place to firm up.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + junkettop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vanilla + junkettop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness once the mixture sets.
Milk
Forms the main body of the custard that the junket tablet sets.
Junket tablet
Contains rennet, which coagulates the milk into a soft, set curd.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavour of the milk.

The step that matters

Pour the milk mixture slowly over the eggs. Adding warm milk to eggs slowly, while stirring, keeps the eggs from scrambling and keeps the mixture smooth and even.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesJunketJunket22 recipesJunket Ice CreamJunket Ice Cream8 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes