Name: Mrs. Rorer's Recipe for Preparing Infant Food
Ingredients: 2 quarts of milk; 2 Chr. Hansen's junket tablets; 1 tablespoon cold water; 1 pint of water; ½ ounce sugar of milk; 3 ounces cream; 4 ounces egg whites

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 ↓

Mrs. Rorer's Recipe for Preparing Infant Food

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

Heat the milk to 100°F (38°C).
Dissolve the junket tablets in cold water and add to the milk.
Once the milk is congealed, use a four-tined fork to separate the curd.
Strain through cheesecloth to save the whey.

Make the baby food

Mix the whey with water, sugar of milk, cream, and egg whites.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Junket + sugartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together82 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Junket + creamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together64 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk: Forms the curd and whey base that the rest of the dish is built on.
Junket tablets: Contain rennet, which causes the milk to congeal into curd.
Egg whites: Add protein that gives the finished mixture body and structure.
Cream: Adds fat, which contributes richness and a softer texture.
Sugar of milk: Adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Heating the milk to 100°F (38°C) before adding the junket tablets. Rennet works best at a warm, stable temperature. If the milk is too hot or too cold, it may fail to congeal properly or set unevenly, so the curd won't separate cleanly from the whey.

“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.