Dear Surgery: Crème brûlée and panacotta seem to appear on every menu these days and I'd like to offer customers an alternative dessert. What do you suggest?
The Surgery says: I agree that most gastro pub and restaurant menus feature the same old desserts, with crème brûlée and panacotta being almost omnipresent. Personally I prefer simple, old-fashioned English desserts. Rather than panacotta, why not bring back a couple of similar milk and cream-based puddings such as blancmange or junket?
These delicious desserts were very popular before the Second World War and rarely make an appearance these days. A junket is basically an English version of French curd and cream dishes such as fromage frais. It is produced by curdling warm milk with rennet. There are plenty of recipes for these long-forgotten nursery puddings in old cookery books by writers such as Eliza Acton, Jane Grigson and Michael Smith. These classic books feature all sorts of classic English desserts: semolina pudding, Sussex Pond Pudding, blancmange, posset, syllabub and the rest.
Here's a quick and easy recipe for the simplest of junkets.
Heat 42cl of milk with 14cl single cream to 98.4°F, adding two tablespoons of honey and one tablespoon of rum. Make sure the honey is fully dissolved and, if necessary, heat the milk a little higher. Remove milk from heat and add 1 teaspoon of rennet and stir gently. Pour into the china bowl or ramekins in which you intend to serve it. Put the bowl in a cool place to set, but not the refrigerator. Sprinkle with nutmeg or cinnamon. Serve with clotted cream, honey, fruit compôte or simply on its own.