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Dessert

Almond Blanc Mange

A custard dessert made with milk, corn starch, sugar, and blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 485 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, corn-starch, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture together until it thickens.

  3. Stir in the blanched and split almonds.

  4. Pour into a mold and let it cool before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks into a thickened, creamy custard.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the mousse its body and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the mousse and helps balance the flavor of the milk.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a slight texture within the set mousse.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it boils and its starch granules swell and gelatinize. Stopping early leaves a thin mixture that will not set properly when cooled.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, sugar):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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