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Dessert

Fruit Blanc-mange

A chilled dessert made from stewed fruit, thickened juice, and served with cream.

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 ↓

Fruit Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Stew fresh fruit and strain off the juice.

  2. Sweeten the juice to taste.

Thicken and set

  1. Place the juice in a double boiler and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in cornstarch mixed with a little cold water.

  3. Continue stirring until thickened.

  4. Pour into molds that have been wet with cold water and let cool.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream and sugar.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the hot juice into a firm, sliceable gel as it cooks and cools.
Fresh fruit
Provides the main flavour and colour of the juice that the dessert is built on.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, smooth contrast to the tart fruit when served.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the juice. Cornstarch must be fully mixed in and kept moving as the juice heats. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching, and the starch granules swell and thicken the liquid only once it reaches a boil and is stirred evenly.

“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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