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Gelatine Blanc Mange

A chilled gelatin dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, served with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Gelatine Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1½ pints of milk for 1 hour.

  2. Place the mixture over a kettle of boiling water and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and sugar, stirring briskly for a few moments.

Set and serve

  1. When partly cool, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Flavor with vanilla, then pour into a mold and cool.

  3. Serve with sugar and 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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 milk mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert as it cools.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard; whites are folded in to add lightness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine sets and the eggs thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten yolks while stirring briskly. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot liquid without constant stirring. Stirring briskly distributes the heat so the yolks thicken the custard smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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