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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A chilled milk dessert thickened with isinglass, sweetened with sugar and rose water, optionally colored with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve isinglass in boiling water.

  2. Season milk with sugar and rose water to taste.

Make the jelly

  1. Stir the dissolved isinglass into the milk.

  2. Gently heat the mixture until it begins to jelly.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sifter while hot.

  4. For a yellow color, add the yolks of two eggs before cooling.

Set

  1. Pour into molds and let cool.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + rosetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,249 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the milk into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
New milk
Forms the body of the jelly and supplies its creamy, milky flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and a yellow color to the jelly.

The step that matters

Gently heat the mixture until it begins to jelly. Isinglass sets only when cooled after dissolving; overheating or boiling the milk can weaken its gelling power and can cause the milk to curdle or separate, so heat gently.

“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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