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Dessert

Blanc Manger

A sweet almond milk dessert set with isinglass and optionally flavored with rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blanc Manger

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond milk

  1. Boil sweet and bitter almonds in water for a few minutes.

  2. Soak the boiled almonds in cold water to whiten.

  3. Drain and rub the almonds on a napkin.

  4. Pound the almonds gradually with ½ tablespoon of water.

  5. Mix the pounded almonds with 1 pint of water.

  6. Squeeze the mixture through a napkin to extract almond milk.

  7. Add 6 ounces of pounded sugar to the almond milk.

  8. Pass the mixture through a tammy again.

Set the pudding

  1. Heat ¾ ounce of clarified isinglass until lukewarm.

  2. Mix the lukewarm isinglass with the almond mixture.

  3. Add ½ teacup of old rum before pouring.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mould placed on ice.

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 + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  2. Almond + rumtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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 flavour and the creamy body of the milk.
Clarified isinglass
Gelatinous fish protein that sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the almond flavour.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated, slightly bitter almond aroma in small amounts.

The step that matters

Mixing the lukewarm isinglass with the almond mixture. Isinglass sets as it cools, so it must be warm enough to blend evenly but not hot enough to weaken its setting power. If it cools too much first, it can form lumps or set unevenly before pouring into the mould.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Pecansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum. 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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