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Dessert

Almond Blanc-mange

A chilled almond dessert made with milk, gelatin, blanched almonds, rose water, sugar, and bitter almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond milk

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it is scalding.

  2. Add the soaked gelatine and pounded almonds to the milk.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  5. Strain the mixture through a thin muslin cloth, squeezing to extract almond flavor.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and refrigerate to set.

  2. On the following day, unmold and serve with powdered sugar and cream.

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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the creamy base that the set blanc-mange is built on.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable dessert as it cools.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main almond flavor and some body to the mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the almond flavor.
Rose water
Adds a delicate floral aroma.

The step that matters

Straining through muslin. Squeezing the cloth pushes out the flavorful almond oils and liquid, but pressing too hard can pass fine almond particles through, leaving the texture gritty. Straining removes the solids so the set dessert is smooth.

“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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