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Dessert

Currant Blanc-mange

A custard dessert made with currant juice, isinglass, sugar, and thick cold cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Currant Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in the clear currant juice in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar and bring the mixture to a boil, then strain it.

  3. Gradually stir the strained mixture into the thick cold cream.

Set in molds

  1. When the mixture is less than milk-warm, pour it into molds.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  3. Currant + creamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,829 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable body as it cools.
Clear currant juice
Provides the main liquid and the tart, fruity flavor of the dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the currant juice.
Thick cold cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture that softens the set.

The step that matters

Pour into molds when less than milk-warm. Pouring while the mixture is still too hot can stop the isinglass from setting firmly, and the cream may separate. Waiting until it has cooled to just below milk-warm lets it thicken evenly as it sets.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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