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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A chilled almond custard made with isinglass, milk, and sweet almonds, served with raspberry cream and syllabub.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 552 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the isinglass

  1. Break the isinglass into very small pieces and wash it well.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the isinglass and let it sit overnight.

Make the blancmange

  1. The next morning, add the milk and boil until the isinglass is dissolved.

  2. Strain the mixture and stir in the pounded almonds and sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Once set, turn the blanc mange out onto a deep dish.

  2. Serve with raspberry cream and syllabub around it.

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. Almond + raspberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

  4. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

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

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the milk mixture as it cools.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the dessert and carries the flavour.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty aroma and a delicate flavour to the milk base.

The step that matters

Dissolving the isinglass fully when boiling with the milk. If the isinglass is not completely dissolved before the mixture sets, it will leave gritty or rubbery lumps. Boiling it into the milk ensures it disperses evenly so the set is smooth and uniform.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Pecansfits less well

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

More blancmange recipes

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