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Arrowroot Blanc Mange

A sweet, rose‑water flavored custard made from arrowroot, milk, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Arrowroot Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blanc

  1. Rub the arrowroot into a paste with cold water.

  2. Add the arrowroot paste to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the sugar and salt.

  4. Boil and stir for 8 minutes.

Mold and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a wet mold.

  2. Once firm, serve with cream and powdered 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. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + rosetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

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

Arrowroot
Thickens the hot milk as its starch swells, then sets it into a firm, tender jelly as it cools.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, and its proteins and fat give the blanc a creamy, soft body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild, plain flavour of the milk and arrowroot.

The step that matters

Boil and stir for 8 minutes. Arrowroot starch only thickens fully once it has been heated while the mixture is stirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch from clumping and the milk from scorching on the base of the pan, so the blanc sets smooth rather than lumpy or thin.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, rose. 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.

More arrowroot blanc recipes

Mange 3 See all 2 →

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