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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A chilled custard made from milk, corn starch, sugar, egg whites, cream, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve corn starch and sugar in 1 pint of milk.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into 1 pint of boiling milk.

  4. Stir continuously until it boils again, then remove from heat.

  5. Flavor to taste.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour into cold molds.

  2. Serve cold with cream and currant jelly.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the milk as its granules swell and set when heated with liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a creamy body.
Whites of 3 eggs
Coagulate on heating, adding structure and a delicate set to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the flavor of the milk.

The step that matters

Stir continuously while the mixture comes back to a boil. Starch granules swell and thicken as the mixture heats. Constant stirring keeps them dispersed, preventing lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, milk, egg, cream. 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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