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Dessert

Blanc-Mange

A custard dessert made from milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and corn starch, set in molds and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Blanc-Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Heat the milk in a basin over boiling water.

  2. In a cup, mix the corn-starch with 2 tablespoons of cold milk.

  3. Beat in the egg yolks and sugar into the corn-starch mixture.

  4. When the milk is hot, pour some into the cup and stir well.

  5. Return the mixture to the basin and stir until thickened.

Mould and chill

  1. Pour the mixture into molds that have been wet with cold water.

  2. Set the molds on ice until cold.

  3. Turn the blanc-mange out of the molds.

Serve

  1. Serve with custard.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 thickens into the set mousse.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their fat and emulsifying proteins.
Corn-starch
Thickens the hot milk mixture so the mould holds its shape when cold.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the custard.

The step that matters

Stir until thickened. Egg yolk proteins thicken when heated gently but can scramble if overheated, leaving lumps. Stirring over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth and thick enough to set in the mould.

“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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