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Dessert

Rum Blancmange

A sweet dessert made with lemon, sugar, gelatine, milk, egg yolks, rum, saffron, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rum Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavoring

  1. Rub the yellow rind of the lemons on the sugar.

  2. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of milk until swollen.

Make the custard

  1. Pour 1 pint of boiling milk or cream over the gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  2. Add the lemon‑flavored sugar and the beaten egg yolks mixed with the remaining 1 cup of milk.

  3. Heat the mixture over the fire until hot, then let it cool slightly.

  4. Stir in the rum and saffron dissolved in water until almost cold.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a damp mold and refrigerate until set.

  2. Squeeze the strained lemon juice over the blancmange before serving.

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. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + saffrontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable body as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a rich, smooth custard base.
Milk or cream
Provides the liquid base and creamy texture of the blancmange.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich custard.

The step that matters

Stir in the rum and saffron dissolved in water until almost cold.. Alcohol is volatile and some flavor is lost when it is heated, so adding rum after the mixture has cooled keeps its aroma. Adding it while the custard is still hot can also cause the gelatine to set unevenly.

Swap the saffron

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Saffronthe original

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