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Dessert

Blancmange

A milk and rice dessert flavored with laurel leaves and almond or vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Blancmange

Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Flavor and cook

  1. Steep laurel leaves in milk for flavor, then remove them.

  2. Bring milk to a boil and add rice.

  3. Cook for 10-15 minutes until rice is tender.

Set

  1. Pour mixture into a quart mold and refrigerate overnight to firm up.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Laurel + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

  5. Laurel + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base, and its proteins and fat give the dessert a creamy body.
Rice
Its starch swells and thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the blancmange structure.
Laurel leaves
Infused into the milk to add a subtle aromatic flavor before being removed.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice until fully tender. Milk can scorch or boil over on the bottom of the pan, so keep the heat controlled. Rice must be fully tender because its starch is what thickens the mixture and helps it set when chilled.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against laurel, milk, rice. 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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