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Dessert

Fruit Blanc-mange

A chilled dessert made by cooking fruit with corn starch and molding it into a blanc-mange.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,532 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

Fruit Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the fruit as for serving at the table.

Make the blanc-mange

  1. Add 4 tablespoons of corn starch to the fruit and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Mould the mixture as you would for blanc-mange.

  3. For a layered effect, alternate with white blanc-mange or Graham/rye mush.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cream or fruit sauce.

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. Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  2. Currant + corntop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + creamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,829 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Dark colored fruit
Provides the main flavor and color of the dish.
Corn starch
Thickens the fruit juices so the mixture sets firm when cooled.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch and cooking. Corn starch must be heated with the fruit juice for it to thicken; cooking it briefly lets the starch granules swell and gelatinize, which sets the mixture once cold.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cream. 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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