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Dessert

Fruit Blanc Mange

A milk-based fruit pudding made with corn starch, raisins, currants, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine corn starch and milk.

  2. Add sugar, salt, raisins, currants, and cinnamon stick.

  3. Heat mixture to near boiling.

  4. Dissolve corn starch in a little cold milk, then add to the saucepan.

  5. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring briskly.

  6. Remove the cinnamon stick and pour into a mold or cups to cool.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with whipped 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats and gelatinizes, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens, providing creaminess.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Dried currants
Add tart-sweet fruit flavor and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Cinnamon stick
Infuses warm, sweet spice aroma into the milk as it heats.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes, stirring briskly. Starch granules only swell fully and thicken the milk once they reach a boil, so the pudding must be held there. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed, prevents lumps, and stops the bottom from scorching.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, milk, sugar, raisin, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, sugar, raisin, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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