Name: Blanc-mange
Ingredients: almond; arrowroot; chocolate; farina; gelatine; cream

Why it works: Almond and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve gelatine in warm water.
Mix almond, arrowroot, chocolate, and farina in a bowl.
Add dissolved gelatine and cream to the mixture.
Stir until smooth and pour into a mold.
Refrigerate until set.
Unmold and serve chilled.

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.

Almond + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,466 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Arrowroot + chocolatetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together82 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).