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Dessert

Another Way to Make Blancmange

A chilled almond dessert made with sweet and bitter almonds, cream, milk, and flavored with lemon peel and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds with the ratafia or rose water.

  2. Pound the blanched almonds with the ratafia or rose water.

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in warm milk.

  2. Add the dissolved isinglass to the cream.

  3. Mix in the almond paste, lemon peel, and cinnamon.

  4. Sweeten with pounded loaf sugar.

  5. Let it stand for 2-3 hours.

  6. Put the mixture in a saucepan.

  7. Stir constantly while boiling for 6-8 minutes.

  8. Strain through a fine sieve.

Set and serve

  1. Stir until nearly cold.

  2. Pour into a mold.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the almond paste.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper almond aroma that deepens the flavour.
Isinglass
Sets the cream into a firm, sliceable gel as it cools.
Cream
Gives richness, body and a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Dissolves the isinglass and thins the mixture slightly.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while boiling. Cream and milk scorch easily on the bottom of a pan, and the isinglass can be damaged by overheating. Constant stirring keeps heat even and prevents a burnt taste.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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