Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Blanc Mange

A chilled gelatin dessert made with brewed coffee, water, sugar, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Coffee Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee gelatin

  1. In a pot, combine the brewed coffee and water.

  2. Add the sugar and bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in the dissolved gelatin until fully incorporated.

  4. Strain the mixture into a mold and let it cool.

Serve

  1. Serve chilled with cream and additional 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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

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

  5. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brewed coffee
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the dessert.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid as it cools, giving the dessert its firm, wobbly body.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Stir in the dissolved gelatin until fully incorporated. Gelatin only sets properly when it is fully dissolved and evenly distributed. Undissolved granules or clumps can leave specks or weak, uneven patches in the finished set.

“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.

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes