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Dessert

Currant Blamange

A custard dessert made from 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 Blamange

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.

  3. Strain the mixture and gradually stir it 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
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the mixture into a sliceable, wobbly set as it cools.
Currant juice
Provides the main fruit flavor, tartness, and color of the blanquette.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tart currant juice.
Thick cold cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the set blanquette a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Pouring into molds at the right temperature. If the mixture is still hot, it can thin out or separate the cream, and isinglass may not set properly. Waiting until it is less than milk-warm lets the isinglass begin to gel evenly once it is in the molds.

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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