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Dessert

Blanc Mange

A milk pudding made with isinglass, sugar, and flavoring, served with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the isinglass in cold water until soft.

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk and sugar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the soaked isinglass and stir until dissolved.

  3. Remove from heat and add flavoring to taste.

  4. Strain the mixture into molds and let it cool.

Serve

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

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 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).

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

American isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that causes the milk mixture to firm into a sliceable pudding.
Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and gives it a creamy, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk.

The step that matters

Dissolving the isinglass fully. Isinglass must be completely dissolved into the hot milk before cooling; undissolved pieces leave lumps and weak, uneven setting in the molds.

“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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