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Dessert

Irish Moss Blancmange

A dessert made by cooking Irish moss in milk, sweetened, set, and served with sugar, cream, and tart jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Irish Moss Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the Irish moss and soak it in lukewarm water for 15 minutes.

  2. Shake the moss dry and place it in a saucepan with the milk.

Make the blancmange

  1. Stir occasionally and cook slowly until it begins to jell when dropped on a cold plate.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve and sweeten to taste.

  3. Pour into a mold rinsed with cold water and set in a cool place for several hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar, cream, and a little tart jelly.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Irish moss + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

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

  5. Irish moss + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

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

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

Irish moss
Seaweed that contains gelling compounds, which thicken the milk and set it into a soft jelly as it cools.
Milk
Forms the body of the blancmange, providing the liquid that the moss sets into a creamy dessert.

The step that matters

Cooking until it begins to jell. Cook slowly and stir occasionally so the moss releases its gelling compounds evenly without scorching the milk. Test on a cold plate: the mixture should begin to set, because it firms further as it cools.

“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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