Home › Invalid Cookery › Junket Ice Cream
Junket Ice Cream
1 junket tablet 2 tablespoons cold water 1 qt. milk 1 cup thick cream 1 cup sugar 1 tablespoon vanilla Crush tablet and dissolve in cold water. Heat the milk to lukewarm and add junket, then add cream, sugar and vanilla. Pour into pans of electric refrigerator and let stand several hours. Serves 6.
A still-frozen rennet ice cream from the era when a household electric refrigerator was new enough to be named in the instructions. The whole thing hinges on temperature: rennet works only in a narrow warm band and dies above it.
- Junket tabletsThese are rennet tablets, sold for setting milk puddings and still available from baking suppliers and online. One tablet sets about a quart of milk; liquid rennet works too, following the strength given on the bottle.
- "Lukewarm" means 98-110F"Lukewarm" means roughly 98-110F -- Rennet coagulates best at about blood heat; its activity falls off as the milk gets hotter and it is effectively destroyed at scalding temperatures (around 140F and above). Use a thermometer rather than a finger. Milk that has been overheated will not set, and the mixture will freeze as sweetened milk.
- Do not stir once it has setAdd cream, sugar and vanilla quickly, pour at once, then leave the pans undisturbed until the curd is firm, about 10 to 15 minutes at room temperature. Agitating a setting rennet curd breaks it and leaves the finished ice cream grainy and weeping.
- Dissolve the sugar firstA cup of dry sugar stirred into barely warm milk gives you no time to work before setting begins. Warm the sugar into the milk as it comes up to temperature, then cool to blood heat and add the tablet.
- Pans of the electric refrigeratorThis means the metal freezing trays in the ice compartment of an early electric refrigerator, which ran considerably warmer than a modern freezer. Shallow metal pans are still the right choice; a loaf tin works.
- Still-frozen textureThere is no churning here, so expect a firm, slightly icy ice, not a scoopable custard ice cream. Beating the half-frozen mixture once with a fork after about an hour and a half will break up the crystals if you want it smoother.
- Timing and vanilla"Several hours" in a modern freezer at 0F will likely mean three to four hours or more, depending on the depth of the pans; let it stand 10 minutes at room temperature before serving. A full tablespoon of vanilla is assertive by current standards; two teaspoons is closer to modern taste.
- YieldSix servings, roughly a quart and a half of mixture before freezing.