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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A sweet, thickened milk dessert made with Irish moss, sugar, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the Irish moss in two or three waters.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the moss in the milk until it thickens.

  2. Sweeten and flavor the mixture to taste.

  3. Strain the mixture into molds.

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

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

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

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

  3. 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 into hot milk, thickening it as it sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess to the set pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the moss in the milk until it thickens. Irish moss must be simmered long enough to release its natural gelling compounds. Under-boiling leaves the pudding thin, while the moss needs to be fully dissolved before straining so it sets 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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