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Dessert

Moss Blanc Mange

A dish of moss boiled in milk, sweetened and flavored, then strained into molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Moss Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Fill a large coffee cup with moss.

  2. Pour boiling water over it.

  3. Let it stand for about 10 minutes.

  4. Wash the moss.

  5. Rinse it in cold water.

Make the blanc

  1. Boil the moss in 3 quarts of milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Add sugar and flavoring to taste.

Strain and mold

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or jelly bag 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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the blanc its creamy body and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk.

The step that matters

Boiling the moss in milk. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan or boil over if the heat is too high. Stirring gently and keeping the heat controlled keeps the milk smooth and prevents a cooked or burnt taste.

“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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