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Dessert

Cornstarch Blanc Mange

A custard dessert made with sweet milk, cornstarch, sugar, lemon juice, egg whites, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cornstarch Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blanc

  1. Heat 1 pint of sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In another pint of cold milk, mix cornstarch and sugar until smooth.

  3. Once the milk is hot, pour in the cold milk mixture.

  4. Stir until thick and lump-free.

  5. Flavor with lemon juice and remove from heat.

  6. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1 pint of milk with salt for the custard.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with sugar.

  3. Add the beaten yolks to the boiling milk.

  4. Stir well without boiling until the mixture thickens.

  5. Flavor to taste.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as its starch swells and sets when heated.
Egg whites
Folded in whipped, they add lightness and a delicate airy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it thicken as they gently set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickening and eggs set into.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and a bright, fresh flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the custard without boiling. Egg yolks thicken gently at moderate heat. If the custard boils, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving it grainy and thin instead of smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg. 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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