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Dessert

Strawberry Blancmange

A chilled dessert made from stewed strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the strawberry juice

  1. Stew the strawberries and strain off the juice.

  2. Sweeten the juice to taste.

Thicken and set

  1. Place the juice over heat and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix cornstarch with a little cold water and stir into the boiling juice.

  3. Continue stirring until cooked.

  4. Pour into molds that have been wet with cold water and let cool.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream, sugar, and fresh strawberries if desired.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and colour of the dessert through their juice.
Cornstarch
Thickens the juice as it boils, setting the blancmange into a firm, sliceable form when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the strawberry juice to taste.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, cool contrast when served alongside the set dessert.

The step that matters

Continue stirring until cooked. Cornstarch must be stirred constantly while boiling so it thickens evenly without lumps or scorching. It needs to reach a full boil to swell and gelatinize fully, which gives the set texture after cooling.

“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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