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Dessert

Quince Blamanoe, with Almond Cream

A quince dessert made by blending blanched almonds into a paste, mixing with quince juice, sugar, and isinglass, then cooling into a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Quince Blamanoe, with Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond cream

  1. Blend the almonds into a smooth paste, adding a few drops of water to prevent oiling.

  2. Pour the boiling quince juice over the almond paste and stir well.

  3. Strain the mixture through a strong cloth, twisting the ends to extract the cream.

Set and serve

  1. Return the juice to the heat, add the sugar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the isinglass and simmer for 5 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  3. Stir the mixture until it cools slightly, then mold it for serving.

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. Quince + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide the creamy, rich base that gives the blanc-mange its body and flavor.
Quince juice
Supplies the fruity flavor and liquid that the almond cream is built on.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the quince juice.
Isinglass
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly gel as it cools.

The step that matters

Skimming while simmering. Isinglass is a gelatin-like setting agent, and it only sets properly when the mixture is fully dissolved and clear. Skimming off scum during the simmer keeps the finished set smooth and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or speckled.

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar. 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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