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Dessert

Arrowroot Blancmange

A sweet, gelatinous dessert made from arrowroot and milk, sweetened and flavored, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and milk work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Arrowroot Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Mix 2 teaspoons of arrowroot with a little cold water.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling milk over the arrowroot mixture.

  3. Add sweetener and flavoring to taste.

  4. Place the mixture over the heat and stir constantly for 2-3 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and garnish with colored jellies.

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. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the hot milk into a smooth, glossy, sliceable set.
Milk
Liquid base that the arrowroot thickens, giving the blancmange its creamy body and flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring over the heat for 2-3 minutes. Arrowroot starch thickens as it heats, and stirring constantly keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps or scorching on the base. Stopping too early can leave the mixture thin and unset.

“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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