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Jellies, Blancmanges, Etc

A sweet jelly made from eggs, flour, macaroons, sugar, lemon rind, orange‑flower water, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Jellies, Blancmanges, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

Make the jelly

  1. In a saucepan, combine the eggs, flour, macaroons, sugar, lemon rind, orange-flower water, and milk.

  2. Stir gently over low heat for 20 minutes without boiling until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve over baked apples, pears, or quinces.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set the custard and thicken the mixture as they cook gently.
Fine dry flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives it a smoother, steadier body.
Macaroons
Add almond flavour and body to the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the eggs and lemon.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that thickens into a soft custard.

The step that matters

Stir gently over low heat without boiling. Eggs thicken as their proteins set, but if the mixture gets too hot it can curdle and turn grainy. Gentle heat and steady stirring keep it smooth and thickened.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, lemon, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, lemon, milk. 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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