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Arrowroot Blanc Mange

A cold arrowroot pudding made with milk, sugar, and flavoring, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Arrowroot Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Rub the arrowroot smooth in the cold milk.

  2. Add the sugar and pour the boiling milk over it.

  3. Return to the fire and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the flavoring.

Set and serve

  1. Set in small cups that have been dipped in cold water.

  2. Serve cold with 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 milk as it heats, giving the pudding a smooth, soft set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the pudding its creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Return to the fire and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly. Arrowroot starch swells and thickens as the mixture heats. Constant stirring keeps the heat even, prevents lumps, and stops the starch from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the arrowroot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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