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Dessert

Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate Blanc-mange

A gelatin dessert made with milk, sugar, chocolate, tea, and coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 cup of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Heat the milk to boiling and add the dissolved gelatine.

  3. Stir in the sugar until melted, then remove from heat.

  4. Strain the mixture through thin muslin and divide into three parts.

Flavour the three portions

  1. Stir the grated chocolate into the largest portion, mixing it smooth with cold water.

  2. Add the strong tea to one of the remaining portions and the strong coffee to the other.

  3. Return the chocolate mixture to a pot and heat until scalding.

  4. Rinse the pot with boiling water, then heat the tea and coffee mixtures separately, scalding the pot between each.

Set and serve

  1. Wet small cups or glasses with cold water.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture into some cups, the tea into others, and the coffee into the rest.

  3. Once cold, turn out onto a flat dish and serve with sugar and sweet 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. Chocolate + coffeetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Tea + coffeetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  3. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  4. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

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

  5. Chocolate + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid milk mixture into a firm, sliceable blanc-mange as it cools.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the blanc-mange and carries the flavours.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the tea, coffee and chocolate.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and a deeper colour to one portion.
Strong tea
Adds a subtle tannic, astringent flavour and pale colour to one portion.
Strong coffee
Adds a bitter roasted aroma and darker colour to one portion.

The step that matters

Heating the gelatine mixture to scalding. Gelatine must be fully dissolved to set evenly, so each portion should be heated enough to melt it without boiling. Rinsing the pot between flavours keeps one flavour from tinting the next.

“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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