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Dessert

Tapioca Blanc Mange

A sweet dessert made from tapioca, milk, sugar, and clarified gelatin, served chilled with jam and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and sherry work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 67 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Tapioca Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tapioca base

  1. Soak the tapioca in milk for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the tapioca until tender.

  3. Add a pinch of salt.

  4. Sweeten to taste.

  5. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  6. Let it cool before turning it out.

Make the cream set

  1. Dissolve isinglass or gelatin in water over heat.

  2. Squeeze lemon juice onto the sugar.

  3. Stir the lemon juice into the cream and wine.

  4. Add the dissolved isinglass or gelatin.

  5. Mix well.

  6. Pour into molds that have been wet with cold water.

  7. Set molds on ice until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve with strawberry or raspberry jam and a little cream.

  2. Serve with sugar and cream or custard sauce.

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. Strawberry + sherrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Milk + strawberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Strawberry + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Swells and softens in milk, thickening the mixture into a tender, pudding-like body.
Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the cream mixture into a firm, sliceable shape as it cools.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the set dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Madeira or sherry wine
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the cream mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the isinglass or gelatine fully before adding it. Gelatine and isinglass only set properly when fully dissolved and evenly mixed; lumps or undissolved granules leave weak, uneven patches in the finished set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, strawberry, cream, sugar, sherry. 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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