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Dessert

Chocolate Blanc Mange

A chilled chocolate custard made with milk, shaved chocolate, sugar, corn starch, and sweetened vanilla cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Wet the corn starch with a little extra milk to make it smooth.

  2. Stir the wet corn starch into the boiling milk.

  3. Pour boiling water over the chocolate and sugar.

  4. Add this mixture to the milk when it begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into cups.

  2. Cool the cups.

  3. Serve with sweetened cream flavored with vanilla.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 liquid base that the starch thickens into a smooth custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the blanc mange its firm, sliceable body.
Shaved chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color throughout the custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Wetting the corn starch before adding it to the milk. Starch clumps into lumps if it hits hot liquid dry. Mixing it first with cold or room-temperature milk disperses the granules so they thicken the custard evenly.

“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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