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Dessert

Corn-starch Blanc Mange

A custard-like dessert made with sweet milk, corn starch, sugar, lemon flavoring, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Corn-starch Blanc Mange

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn-starch Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat 1 pint of sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In another bowl, mix 4 heaping tablespoons of corn-starch and ½ cup of sugar with the remaining 1 pint of cold milk.

  3. Once the milk is hot, pour in the cold milk mixture and stir until thick and smooth.

  4. Remove from heat, add lemon flavoring, and fold in the beaten egg whites.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Corn-starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard as it heats.
Egg whites
Add airy lightness to the dessert when folded in at the end.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of the dessert and sets into a creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch mixture into the hot milk. Cornstarch must be stirred while the liquid heats so the starch granules disperse evenly and swell. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching, and the mixture thickens as the starch gelatinizes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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