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Dessert

Chocolate Blanc Mange

A chilled chocolate mousse made with white chocolate, gelatin, milk, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Prepare the chocolate and gelatine

  1. Grate the chocolate and stir it with a little boiling water over heat until smooth and glossy.

  2. Melt the gelatine in a small amount of water.

Make the mousse base

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Once boiling, stir in the chocolate and add the sugar.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the melted gelatine and vanilla.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into rinsed moulds and refrigerate until set.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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

Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and structure that gives the mousse its body.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the chocolate into a smooth base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the gelatine. Gelatine can lose its setting power if it is boiled, so the mixture should come off the heat before the melted gelatine is stirred in.

“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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