Recipe: Junket

Fruit and junket is a nice dessert for the sick. Photo / Doug Sherring

I always liked junket as a kid. Cool and slippery, it is a perfect dessert for jaded palates.

To make it you need to buy some rennet. This enzyme curdles the milk and precipitates its setting.

In medieval times, junket was the food of nobility, made with cream and flavoured with rose water and spices. But we are keeping it simple for the unwell.

Read the instructions on the rennet box to give you the setting quantity required for the volume of milk you want to use.

1 Warm the milk to blood temperature (as you would a baby's bottle) and sweeten it to your taste with castor sugar. You can add a little vanilla essence (please use the real stuff).

2 Add the required amount of rennet. Pour the junket into individual glasses or a bowl. Chill in the fridge.

3 Grate a little nutmeg over the junket before serving and offer some diced fresh fruit.
Fruit diced small with a plain yoghurt is also a nice option if you don't want to make junket.