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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A custard made from eggs, milk, and cornstarch, flavored with lemon or vanilla and sweetened with sugar.

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 ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little cold milk and add it to the eggs.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil and stir in the egg and cornstarch mixture.

  4. Stir briskly until cooked.

  5. Flavor with lemon or vanilla.

  6. Sweeten to taste while cooking or serve with cream and sugar.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold to cool.

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).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Provide protein that thickens and gives the custard structure as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard as its starch gelatinizes when heated.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard and supplies moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir briskly until cooked. Egg proteins can set unevenly or curdle if heated too fast or unstirred, while cornstarch needs to reach a boil to fully thicken. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly for a smooth result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, cream. 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.

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