Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Blanc-mange

A chilled almond mousse made with gelatin, cream, almonds, sugar, rose water, and peach or bitter almond kernels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine and cream

  1. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water until soft.

  2. Melt the gelatine over low heat and mix it with the cream.

Make the almond paste

  1. Scald the almonds in boiling water to remove the skins.

  2. In a mortar, beat the almonds into a paste, adding a sprinkle of sugar and rose water gradually.

Combine and set

  1. Combine the almond paste with the cream mixture and pour into molds.

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. Almond + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Peach + rosetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the cream into a firm, sliceable blancmange as it cools.
Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dessert.
Almonds
Supply the main flavour and fat, giving the blancmange its nutty body.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the almonds.

The step that matters

Melting the gelatine over low heat. Gelatine can lose its setting power if it overheats or boils, so it should melt gently and be combined with the cream while still warm but not hot.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, almond, sugar, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, almond, sugar, rose. 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.

You might also like

Peach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipes