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Dessert

Blamange Rubane, Or, Striped Blamange

A striped gelatin dessert made by layering colored blamange with spinach, cochineal, saffron, egg yolks, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Blamange Rubane, Or, Striped Blamange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 1 quart of blamange, making it a little firmer than usual.

  2. Divide the blamange into three or four equal portions.

  3. Rub the insides of the moulds with salad oil.

Color the portions

  1. To one portion, add enough prepared spinach juice to color it green.

  2. To another portion, add liquid cochineal or carmine for red color.

  3. For a third portion, mix in a few drops of strong saffron infusion.

  4. For a third portion, stir boiling blamange into beaten egg yolks. Thicken the egg mixture over gentle heat with 1-2 tablespoons of milk.

  5. For chocolate color, boil chocolate smooth in a small amount of water.

Layer and set

  1. Pour the green portion into the mould in a half-inch layer. Allow the green layer to cool until just liquid.

  2. Pour the red portion into the mould in a half-inch layer. Allow the red layer to cool until just liquid.

  3. Pour the saffron/egg portion into the mould in a half-inch layer. Allow the saffron/egg layer to cool until just liquid.

  4. Pour the chocolate portion into the mould in a half-inch layer. Allow the chocolate layer to cool until just liquid.

  5. Ensure each layer is completely cold before adding the next to prevent mixing.

  6. If ice is unavailable, place the moulds in salted water.

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. Spinach + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  3. Saffron + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the saffron portion and add richness and a yellow color.
Chocolate
Adds brown color and a cocoa flavor to one of the layers.
Isinglass or calf's-foot jelly
Provides the gel that holds each striped layer firm when set.

The step that matters

Let each layer cool until just liquid before pouring the next. If a layer is still warm or fully set when the next is poured, the layers can mix and blur the stripes. Each layer needs to be cold enough to hold its shape but still liquid enough to bond lightly to the one above.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, egg, milk, chocolate):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Saffronthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, egg, milk, chocolate. 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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