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Dessert

Fruit Blanc Mange

A fruit custard made with milk, arrowroot, sugar, rose water, and fresh fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Fruit Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit blanc mange

  1. Stew fresh fruit, strain the juice, and sweeten to taste.

  2. Place the strained juice over the fire in a double kettle until it boils.

  3. While boiling, stir in some starch wet with a little cold water, using two tablespoons of starch for each pint of juice.

  4. Continue stirring until the mixture is sufficiently cooked.

  5. Pour the mixture into moulds that have been wetted in cold water.

  6. Set the moulds away to cool.

Make the milk blanc mange

  1. Boil one quart of milk, reserving one gill to wet the arrowroot with.

  2. When the milk boils, stir in two and a half tablespoons of arrowroot.

  3. After a few minutes, add one tablespoon of crushed sugar, one tablespoon of rose water, and a little salt.

  4. Pour the mixture into moulds.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

198Calories
8 gProtein
8 gFat
25 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 5 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Arrowrootnot in our table0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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 + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + rosetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Starch
Thickens the strained juice as it cooks, giving the dessert its set body.
Arrowroot
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the dessert a smooth, set texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the second blanc mange and adds richness.
Fruit juice (in the method)
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the fruit blanc mange.

The step that matters

Stirring while the starch cooks. Starch settles on the bottom and scorches easily if not stirred constantly, and it must be cooked through so it thickens fully and loses its raw starchy taste.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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