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Dessert

Irish Moss Blanc Mange

A sweet pudding made from Irish moss, milk, sugar, and vanilla, served chilled with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Irish Moss Blanc Mange

Why it works: Irish moss and vanilla share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Irish Moss Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the Irish moss carefully.

  2. Simmer the moss in 1 quart of milk for about 20 minutes until it begins to dissolve.

  3. Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve.

Set and serve

  1. Stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of vanilla flavoring.

  2. Pour into cups or molds and refrigerate to harden.

  3. Serve with sugar and cream.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Irish moss + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Irish moss
Its natural gelling compounds thicken the milk and let the pudding set when chilled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the moss thickens into a soft, creamy pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, slightly salty flavour of the moss and milk.

The step that matters

Simmer the moss until it begins to dissolve. The moss must be heated long enough to release its gelling compounds into the milk. Under-cooking leaves the pudding weak and unable to set, while over-cooking can make it stringy or grainy.

“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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