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Dessert

Chocolate Blanc Mange

A chocolate-flavoured milk pudding thickened with cornstarch and egg whites, set in a dish to cool.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Chocolate Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Heat the milk and sugar in a double boiler.

  2. Reserve enough cold milk to make a thin paste with the cornstarch.

  3. Add the melted chocolate to the hot milk.

  4. Mix the cornstarch with the reserved cold milk.

  5. Add the cornstarch mixture to the hot milk, stirring vigorously until the mixture thickens.

  6. Cook for 15 minutes.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  9. Add vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a dish to cool.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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 the cornstarch thickens into a smooth pudding.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the blancmange its set body.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the pudding.
Egg whites
Folded in whipped, they add lightness and a softer, airier texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the milk and adds to the pudding's flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch mixture into the hot milk. Cornstarch must be made into a smooth paste with cold milk first and stirred vigorously as it enters the hot milk, or it clumps. Starch granules swell and thicken the liquid only when they are evenly dispersed and heated.

“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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