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Dessert

Chocolate Blancmange

A sweet dessert made with gelatin, chocolate, sugar, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chocolate mixed to a paste with a little milk and the sugar.

  3. Mix thoroughly and stir continuously until it reaches boiling point.

  4. Add the remaining milk and continue stirring until it boils.

  5. Allow it to boil for 12 minutes.

  6. Pour into a mold that has been wetted with cold water.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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 mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert as it cools.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine and chocolate turn into a creamy set dessert.
Vanilla chocolate
Provides the main flavor and the chocolate color of the blancmange.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stir continuously up to the boil. Milk, sugar and chocolate can scorch on the bottom of the pan and stick if not stirred, and the chocolate paste can form lumps if it is not fully blended in before boiling.

“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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