JUNKET - recipe dated 1824

A Cornish and West Country dessert that has been prepared and eaten for hundreds of years. I will quote the 1824 recipe, but when I made it, I quartered the quantity for 2 servings.

“Set a quart of new milk, with ½ pint of cream in it, in a glass dish, with a spoonful of rennet; pour over it ½ pint white wine, 2 oz sugar and half a nutmeg, grated. Cover with plain whisked cream, and garnish with apricot jam”.

I have eaten junket all my life and my husband says he had it for Sunday tea regularly, as a child. I used Whole milk for this, a medium sweet white wine and double cream, along with ordinary apricot jam. Finally grating the nutmeg over the top after it had set. I followed the instructions on the rennet for that quantity.

I must admit the addition of wine made a huge difference. Why had I never thought of this before!  More grown up and less like “nursery food”! The apricot really complimented the flavour of the rennet. As a child, and ever since, we have always used clotted cream on the top, but the Double [thick] Cream worked well alongside the jam. But I would think that a soft apricot puree would be good or better. Plus maybe extra clotted cream, of course!! As you can see, I also used individual glass dishes.

I used:

½ pint whole milk - tepid

2 fl oz double cream

2 fl oz medium sweet white wine

1 dessertspoon caster sugar

2 teaspoons rennet

Nutmeg to grate over

Apricot Jam and Whipped Double Cream to garnish. Serves 2.