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Dessert

Lemon Blanc Mange

A lemon custard made with corn starch, sugar, eggs, and boiling water, served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the yellow rind of the lemons and pour the boiling water over it.

  2. Let it stand over heat until it boils.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the corn starch with the lemon juice and a little cold water until smooth.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten eggs to the mixture.

  3. Strain the boiling water and pour it over the corn starch mixture, stirring briskly.

  4. Let it boil for about 5 minutes, then pour into molds to cool.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream and sugar.

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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Lemons
Supply the juice and rind that give the dessert its bright, sharp flavour.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, setting the mixture into a soft, firm body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken and set the mixture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the boiling water into the corn starch mixture. Starch must be hot and stirred constantly to swell evenly and thicken; pouring carelessly can leave lumps or a thin, unset result.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, egg. 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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