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Dessert

Quince Blancmange

A chilled quince dessert made with quince juice, isinglass, sugar, and thick sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Quince Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Peel the quinces and place them in cold water immediately.

  2. Drain the quinces and put them in a saucepan, covering them with cold water.

  3. Simmer gently until tender, then transfer to a bowl.

Make the juice

  1. The next day, strain the juice through a jelly bag until clear.

Make the blancmange

  1. In a saucepan, combine the clear juice with 1½ ounces of isinglass or gelatine and ½ pound of loaf sugar for each pint of juice.

  2. Simmer gently until the isinglass is dissolved, removing any scum that rises.

  3. Gradually stir in 1 pint of thick sweet cream until almost cold.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mould soaked in cold water and refrigerate until 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Quince + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together203 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the fruit flavour and the juice that forms the base of the dessert.
Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable blancmange when chilled.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and balances its natural tartness.
Thick sweet cream
Adds richness and a creamy, smooth texture to the set dessert.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the cream until almost cold. Adding cream to a very hot gelatine mixture can cause it to separate or look curdled. Cooling it nearly to setting point first keeps the cream evenly dispersed and the texture smooth.

Swap the quince

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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