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Dessert

Blanc-manger a LA Franchise

A custard-like pudding made with arrowroot, eggs, butter, cream, almonds, orange-flower water, milk, and served with a rum or sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Blanc-manger a LA Franchise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Mix arrowroot in cold water until smooth.

  2. Add beaten eggs to the mixture.

  3. Add butter or cream to the mixture.

  4. Pound almonds with orange-flower water to prevent oiling.

  5. Boil milk.

  6. Add boiled milk to the mixture.

  7. Stir mixture until smooth and thick.

Set and make the sauce

  1. Pour mixture into a mold.

  2. Refrigerate until needed.

  3. Beat butter with sifted sugar for sauce.

  4. Add rum or sherry to sauce and mix well.

  5. Boil sauce, stirring constantly until done.

Serve

  1. Serve pudding cold with hot plates and sauce hot.

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. Arrowroot + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable set when cooled.
Eggs
Add richness and help give the pudding body and structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the pudding and sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens into the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.
Bitter almonds
Provide a distinct almond aroma and flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir mixture until smooth and thick. Arrowroot thickens only as it heats, and lumps form if it is not fully dispersed first. Stirring keeps the starch evenly distributed so it gels smoothly when cooled.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (arrowroot, egg, butter, cream, almond, milk, sauce):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against arrowroot, egg, butter, cream, almond, milk, sauce. 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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