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Dessert

Irish Moss Blanc-Mange

A gelatinous dessert made by boiling Irish moss in milk, flavored with vanilla, and served with sugar, cream, or fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Irish Moss Blanc-Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Soak the Irish moss in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Pick over and wash the moss.

  3. Tie the moss in a lace bag.

Make the blanc-mange

  1. Place the bag in a double boiler with the milk.

  2. Boil until the milk thickens when dropped on a cool plate.

  3. Add the salt.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Flavor with vanilla.

Mould and serve

  1. Mould the mixture in small cups or egg-shells.

  2. To prepare egg-shells, break off a piece as large as a ten-cent piece.

  3. Pour out the egg.

  4. Rinse the shells.

  5. Stand the shells upright in a pan of meal.

  6. Place half a peach or a piece of candied fruit in the bottom of the cup before filling.

  7. Fill the shells with the blanc-mange.

  8. Serve the blanc-mange with sugar and cream.

  9. Serve with apple or grape jelly.

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. Vanilla + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

  2. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  3. Irish moss + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Vanilla + appletop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 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

Irish moss
Seaweed-based gelling agent that thickens the milk and sets it into a soft, wobbly custard.
Milk
Forms the body of the dessert, providing creaminess and the liquid that the moss sets.

The step that matters

Boil until the milk thickens when dropped on a cool plate. Irish moss releases its gelling compounds only with sustained heating in the milk. Stopping too early leaves the blanc-mange runny and unable to hold its shape when moulded and unmoulded.

“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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