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Dessert

Orange Blanc Mange

A French dessert made from orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, cornflour, and water, cooked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,634 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blend the corn flour smoothly with the cold water.

  2. Wipe the lemon and rub the yellow rind with the sugar.

  3. Strain the juice of the oranges and lemon.

Cook and set

  1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and boil, stirring well, for 7 to 8 minutes.

  2. Pour into a mold that has been wet with cold water and turn out when set.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Corn + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together586 recipes

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

  3. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,927 recipes

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn flour
Thickens the juice into a smooth, set blanc as it cooks.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the dish and, rubbed on lemon rind, lends aroma from the zest.
Orange juice
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the dessert.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the orange and sugar.

The step that matters

Stirring while boiling. Corn flour is a starch that can clump or scorch on the base of the pan if not stirred well while boiling. Constant stirring keeps it evenly dispersed so it thickens smoothly and sets properly.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, sugar, orange):

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  3. Limeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, sugar, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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