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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A custard-like mousse made with milk, sugar, corn starch, eggs, butter, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Combine milk and sugar in a porcelain saucepan.

  2. Place the saucepan into a larger pot containing boiling water.

  3. Mix corn starch with a little cold milk, then stir the corn starch mixture into the saucepan.

  4. Stir until the mixture boils for 3 minutes.

  5. Add the butter.

  6. Beat the egg yolks, then stir the beaten yolks into the mixture, ensuring it does not boil after adding.

  7. Remove the saucepan from heat.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 teaspoon of sugar until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites and lemon extract into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a porcelain mold that has been dipped in cold water.

  4. Once cooled, turn the mousse out of the mold.

  5. Serve with custard or fruit sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the base and whites, whipped stiff, give the mousse its airy lightness.
Corn starch
Gelatinises when heated with the milk, thickening the base so the mousse can hold its shape.
Rich sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing body and a creamy texture.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the mousse and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel in the finished mousse.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten yolks without boiling. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, leaving lumps and a grainy texture. Keeping the custard below boiling lets the yolks thicken it smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, corn, butter, 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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