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Dessert

Blanc-mange

A custard dessert made with corn starch, sugar, milk, egg whites, served with jelly and sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve corn starch and sugar in 1 pint of milk.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into 1 pint of boiling milk, stirring constantly until it boils again.

  4. Flavor to taste before removing from heat.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into cups or small molds and let cool.

  2. Once cool, remove from molds and place in a glass dish with a mold of jelly in the center.

  3. Serve with a spoonful of jelly and sweetened 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so it sets into a firm, sliceable custard when cooled.
Egg whites
Add structure and help the custard hold its shape once cooked and cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and provides its creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring while the mixture returns to a boil. Corn starch thickens only when heated, and it can clump or scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred constantly. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the custard sets 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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