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Dessert

Blamange Rubane, Or, Striped Blamange

A colored custard made from blamange, spinach juice, cochineal, saffron, egg yolks, milk, chocolate, and optional isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Blamange Rubane, Or, Striped Blamange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the colours

  1. Prepare 1 quart of blamange, making it a little firmer than usual.

  2. Divide the blamange into three or four equal portions.

  3. To one portion, add enough prepared spinach juice to achieve the desired green color.

  4. To another portion, mix in liquid cochineal or carmine for red color.

  5. Add a few drops of strong saffron infusion to a third portion.

  6. For added color, boil chocolate smoothly in a small amount of water.

Make the custard and set

  1. Quickly stir in boiling blamange into well-beaten egg yolks.

  2. Thicken the egg mixture over gentle heat with an additional spoonful or two of milk.

  3. If desired, incorporate firm, clear isinglass or calf's-foot jelly.

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. Spinach + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  3. Saffron + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Blamange
Forms the creamy base that the coloured layers are built from.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard on gentle heat and add richness to the mixture.
Milk
Loosens the egg mixture and helps it thicken smoothly without curdling.
Isinglass or calf's-foot jelly
Adds gelling strength so the blamange holds its shape when set.

The step that matters

Stirring boiling blamange into egg yolks. Adding hot liquid to yolks too quickly can scramble them. Stirring vigorously while pouring tempers the yolks, so the mixture thickens smoothly as it gently heats.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, egg, milk, chocolate):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Saffronthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, egg, milk, chocolate. 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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