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Devonshire Junket
Mix 1/2 a teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon with 2 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Add a glass of brandy, and stir well; then add one quart of fresh milk and rennet to curdle. Stir until it begins to set, and serve with clotted cream.
A rennet-set junket is barely cooking at all — it is one chemical reaction, and it either happens or it doesn't. Almost everything that goes wrong comes down to milk temperature and handling.
- Do not over-stirThe instruction to "stir until it begins to set" is the one line to treat with care. Stir the rennet in thoroughly for a few seconds, then leave the bowl absolutely undisturbed; agitating a setting curd shears it and you get watery whey with lumps rather than a single smooth junket.
- Blood heat is the hingeRennet works best at around blood heat, 98-100F, and loses activity as the milk gets hotter, failing altogether well above that. The "fresh milk" of the original probably means milk straight from the cow. Warm chilled milk gently to just tepid on the wrist, no hotter, and leave it undisturbed promptly after the rennet goes in.
- Milk that will not setUHT and most ultra-pasteurised milk will not form a curd at all, and low-fat milk sets weakly. Use ordinary pasteurised whole milk. "Fresh milk" here most likely meant raw milk, which carries a real pathogen risk in a dish that is never heated.
- RennetJunket tablets and liquid animal rennet are both sold for cheesemaking. Typical strength is one tablet or about a teaspoon of dilute liquid rennet per quart; follow the strength printed on your bottle rather than the vague "rennet to curdle." Vegetarian rennet works but sets a slightly softer curd.
- A glass of brandyThe recipe says only "a glass"; if a wine glass is meant, that is roughly 2 fl oz by Victorian reckoning. That much spirit in a quart of milk is near the upper limit of what will still set cleanly, so it is one thing to suspect if the curd fails.
- Clotted creamGenuine Devonshire or Cornish clotted cream is sold in jars, though outside the West Country you may have to look to a specialist or import grocer. Ordinary whipped cream is a poor substitute — clotted cream is scalded and around 55 per cent fat, thick enough to sit on the surface in a slab.
- Yield and servingA quart makes six small servings. Set it in the dish it will be served from, chill after it has set firm, and dust with a little more cinnamon at the table.
Junket is one of the oldest surviving English sweets, a curd set with rennet and eaten fresh rather than pressed into cheese; the name is generally traced to the Norman French jonquette, a rush basket of the kind used to drain new curds. The West Country claimed it because Devon and Cornwall had both the dairy herds and the clotted cream that finishes it, and "Devonshire junket" is often said to have been a feature of fair days and tea tables in the region. The brandy and cinnamon here mark it as the richer, company version rennet and a little sugar.