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Dessert

Arrowroot Blanc-mange

A sweet dessert made from arrowroot, water, sugar, and sherry or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and sherry work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 129 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Arrowroot Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Thicken the base

  1. Mix the arrowroot with 3 tablespoons of cold water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the paste to the hot water and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until well blended and free from lumps.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

Finish and set

  1. Stir in the sugar and sherry or brandy.

  2. Beat quickly and pour into a bowl or mold to cool.

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. Arrowroot + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Starch that swells and thickens the liquid into a smooth, set pudding when heated.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, plain flavour of the set pudding.
Sherry or brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, flavourful note to the finished blancmange.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the hot water while stirring constantly. Starch granules clump into lumps if they hit hot liquid unevenly. Constant stirring keeps them dispersed so they thicken smoothly as they reach a boil.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar. 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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