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Chocolate Blanc Mange

A chocolate mousse made with melted chocolate, gelatin, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the chocolate in a saucepan.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in a little warm water.

Make the mousse

  1. Add the milk and sugar to the melted chocolate.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Boil for one hour, stirring occasionally.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool slightly.

Set

  1. Pour the cooled 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. Chocolate + coffeetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet chocolate
Provides the main flavor and rich body that the mousse is built on.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the mousse a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Cool slightly before pouring into molds. Gelatine begins to set as the mixture cools, so pouring too early can leave it runny and pouring too late can make it clump and set unevenly 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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