Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Blancmange

A chilled chocolate dessert made with gelatin, milk, sugar, and chocolate, served with cream.

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

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in enough water to cover it until dissolved.

Make the blancmange

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, and grated chocolate; boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the dissolved gelatine to the mixture and boil for 5 more minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Flavor with vanilla extract.

  4. Pour into molds and let cool.

Serve

  1. Serve 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the milk and chocolate mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert.
Sweet milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the gelatine sets.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and some body to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stirring the gelatine into the hot mixture. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed before setting. Stirring constantly while boiling keeps it from clumping or settling, so the set blancmange is smooth and uniform throughout.

“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

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes