Skip to main content
Dessert

Arrowroot Blancmange

A sweet pudding made from arrowroot, milk, sugar, and optional brandy, set in a greased mold and garnished with fruit compote.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Arrowroot Blancmange

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Mix the arrowroot with ½ pint of the milk to form a smooth batter.

  2. Heat the remaining milk with laurel leaves or lemon peel until well flavored, then strain the milk.

  3. Add the boiling milk to the arrowroot mixture, sweeten with sugar, and stir continuously until it thickens.

  4. For added flavor, stir in brandy just before molding.

Mold and serve

  1. Grease a mold with salad oil, pour in the mixture, and let it set.

  2. Once set, turn it out onto a dish and garnish with fruit compote or jam.

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 + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Arrowroot + laureltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Milk + laureltop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard-like texture as it is heated.
Milk
Forms the body of the blancmange and carries the flavor of the infused leaves or peel.
Sugar
Sweetens the blancmange.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until it thickens. Arrowroot starch can clump or stay grainy if it is not stirred while the boiling milk is added. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly into a smooth set.

Swap the arrowroot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, laurel, sugar, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesArrowroot PuddingArrowroot Pudding46 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipes