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Dessert

Cream Blanc Mange

A chilled dessert made with milk, gelatin, cinnamon, sugar, cream, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Cream Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Pour ½ pint of milk over ¼ box of gelatine and let it stand for 1 hour.

Make the custard

  1. Heat 1 pint of milk with a few bits of stick cinnamon until boiling.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add 6 tablespoons of sugar, 1 pint of cream, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into moulds that have been rinsed with cold water.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert as it cools.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine dissolves into and sets.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the set dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the dairy flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine in the hot milk. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in the hot milk before the other ingredients are added. Undissolved granules leave gritty specks and weak patches, and the dessert may not set 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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