I started to look for recipes for junket, and discovered that it is basically just milk, sugar and rennet, plus whatever flavourings take your fancy. So I decided to buy some rennet and get junketing.
I swiftly discovered that rennet is not an easy substance to get hold of. Apart from making junket, it’s only use would appear to be for making cheese, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that it’s mostly available in industrial amounts only. However, as one of my characteristics is a degree of stubbornness even in pursuit of the pointless, I keep looking and eventually tracked some down.
The next step was to decide what a Coraline junket should contain. Button eyes of some kind, obviously, but what else??
I recently re-read ‘Coraline’ in preparation for the film http://coraline.com/ (Out on 6th Feb in the USA, 8th May in the UK) which I will be seeing in Dublin on 15th February. Coraline, left alone, caters for herself with toast, frozen pizzas (neither of which seems suitable to include in a dessert) but also with chocolate cake and apples.
So, chocolate, apples and button eyes.
The chocolate came from Cadburys ‘Giant Chocolate Buttons’, which after I little trial and error I found I could drill into with the point of a knife to make proper button holes.
In the end I made 2 junkets. 
The Coraline junket, made with grated chocolate & cinnamon, and garnished with apple.
The Coraline junket, made with grated chocolate & cinnamon, and garnished with apple.
And the Other junket, such as one might find on the other side of the door.
I did consider adding blue sugar sprinkles to the junket but could only find multicoloured sprinkles, and I am not (yet) sufficiently far gone as to be willing to sort these by hand and pick out the blue ones.
I did consider adding blue sugar sprinkles to the junket but could only find multicoloured sprinkles, and I am not (yet) sufficiently far gone as to be willing to sort these by hand and pick out the blue ones.
