Skip to main content
Dessert

Irish Moss Blancmange

A custard-like dessert made from Irish moss, cream, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Irish Moss Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Wash the Irish moss and soak it in lukewarm water for 15 minutes.

  2. Shake the moss dry and place it in a custard kettle with the milk.

Make the blancmange

  1. Stir occasionally and cook slowly until it slightly jells when dropped on a cold plate.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve and sweeten to taste.

  3. Pour into a mold rinsed with cold water and set in a cool place for several hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar, cream, and a little tart jelly.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Irish moss + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

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

  5. Irish moss + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Irish moss
Seaweed that releases gelling compounds when simmered, setting the milk into a soft jelly.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the moss thickens and sets into the blancmange.
Cream
Adds richness and fat for a smoother, more delicate mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking until it slightly jells. Irish moss must be cooked slowly and stirred to release its gelling compounds fully. Undercooking leaves the blancmange runny, while overcooking or scorching the milk can make it grainy or taste burnt.

“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.

You might also like

Irish Moss Blanc MangerIrish Moss Blanc Manger27 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes