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Dessert

Good Common Blanc-mange, or Blanc-manger

A custard dessert made from milk, lemon rind, bitter almonds, sugar, isinglass, cream, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Good Common Blanc-mange, or Blanc-manger

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse and dissolve

  1. Infuse the lemon rind and bitter almonds in the milk for 1 hour.

  2. Add sugar and isinglass.

  3. Boil gently while stirring until dissolved.

  4. Remove any scum.

Finish and set

  1. Stir in the cream.

  2. Strain the mixture into a bowl.

  3. Gently stir until nearly cold to prevent the cream from settling.

  4. Gradually mix in the brandy before molding.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that makes the milk mixture firm into a molded dessert.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the set blanc-mange a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the flavours of lemon, almond and brandy.
New milk
Forms the main liquid base that carries the flavours and sets into the dessert.

The step that matters

Gently stir until nearly cold. Cream is less dense than the warm liquid and can separate and rise if the mixture cools undisturbed. Gentle stirring while it cools keeps the cream evenly dispersed, and the mixture should not be stirred hard, which could break up the gelling structure as it sets.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, sugar, cream, 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.

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