Skip to main content
Dessert

Blancmange with Fruit

A chilled milk dessert thickened with isinglass, cedar syrup, and fruit jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Blancmange with Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in the boiling milk, then strain it.

  3. Let the mixture cool for 30 minutes and skim off the top.

  4. Pour the liquid into another pan, leaving sediment behind.

  5. Whisk in the cedar syrup and jelly until it begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds and let it set.

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Syrup + curranttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together329 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Whole milk
Forms the creamy base that the set blancmange is made from.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the liquid as it cools.
Currant jelly
Adds fruit flavour, colour and some sweetness to the blancmange.
Cedar syrup
Adds sweetness and flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Straining after the isinglass dissolves. Isinglass must be fully dissolved and strained so no lumps or sediment remain. Undissolved particles would leave gritty specks and uneven setting in the finished blancmange.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, syrup. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesOranges in SyrupOranges in Syrup9 recipes