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Mrs. Rorer’s Recipe for Preparing Infant Food

A milk-based infant food made by congealing milk with junket tablets, whey, sugar, cream, and egg whites.

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 ↓

Mrs. Rorer’s Recipe for Preparing Infant Food

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Heat the milk to 100°F (38°C).

  2. Dissolve the junket tablets in cold water and add to the milk.

  3. Allow the milk to congeal completely.

  4. Use a four-tined fork to separate the curd by drawing it through the mixture.

  5. Strain through two layers of cheesecloth, saving the whey.

Finish the food

  1. Mix the whey with the 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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Junket + sugartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Junket + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. 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 that is separated out, and provides the base liquid for the food.
Junket tablets
Contain rennet that makes the milk congeal into a soft curd.
Cream
Adds fat, giving the finished food a richer, smoother texture.
Egg whites
Add protein that contributes structure and body to the finished food.

The step that matters

Allow the milk to congeal completely. If the milk has not fully set, the curd will be weak and separate poorly when drawn with the fork. Rennet works best at the warm temperature reached in the earlier step, so the milk must stay undisturbed until it firms.

“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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