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Dessert

Another Way to Make Blancmange

A chilled almond dessert made with sweet almonds, sherry, sugar, isinglass, water, and 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 ↓

Another Way to Make Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet almonds with sherry and pounded sugar.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in water and boil while stirring until the almond flavor is extracted.

Make and set

  1. Strain the mixture through thin muslin and mix it with the cream.

  2. Stir until completely cold, then pour it into a mold.

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. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavor, which is extracted into the liquid.
Isinglass
Sets the cream into a firm, sliceable gel as it cools.
Cream
Supplies richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the almond flavor.

The step that matters

Stir until completely cold, then pour into the mold. Isinglass sets as it cools, so the mixture must be stirred while cooling to keep it smooth and evenly distributed. Pouring too early, while still warm, can leave it too loose to hold its shape.

“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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