Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Blanc-mange
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the milk
Combine 1 quart of milk, 3 oz of loaf sugar, and 1 inch of cinnamon or lemon peel in a saucepan.
Heat the saucepan over medium heat until the mixture boils.
Thicken
Mix 4 tablespoons of cornflour with 2 tablespoons of cold milk in a bowl until smooth.
Stir the cornflour mixture into the boiling milk mixture.
Boil the mixture for 2 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.
Mould and serve
Rinse a quart basin or mold with cold water.
Remove the cinnamon or lemon peel from the mixture.
Pour the cornflour mixture into the basin.
Set the mixture aside to cool.
Turn the blanc-mange out onto a dish. Serve.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 that the thickened mixture sets from, giving the blanc-mange its body.
- Cornflour
- Thickens the milk as its starch swells on boiling, so the mixture sets firm when cooled.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the milk, giving the dessert its sweet flavour.
The step that matters
Boil the cornflour mixture for 2 minutes while stirring constantly. Cornflour starch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and its granules swell. Constant stirring spreads the starch evenly, preventing lumps and scorching on the base of the pan.
“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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