Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Blanc Mange

A white chocolate custard made with milk, sugar, grated chocolate, corn starch, and cold milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Chocolate Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Boil two quarts of milk with half a pound of white sugar.

  2. Stir in a quarter of a pound of grated Baker's chocolate mixed in boiling water.

  3. Let it boil for twenty minutes.

Thicken and pour

  1. Add four tablespoons of corn starch mixed with three-quarters of a pint cold milk.

  2. Boil for ten minutes longer.

  3. Pour into moulds.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

808Calories
22 gProtein
18 gFat
137 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
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 Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + corntop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks down and sets into the pudding's body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the pudding its set texture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the milk and chocolate.
Baker's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch must be mixed with cold milk first and then kept boiling so its starch granules swell and thicken evenly. Adding it to hot milk without a smooth blend can cause lumps, and not boiling long enough leaves the pudding thin.

“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.

You might also like