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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Blanc-mange

A custard-like dessert made from milk, cornflour, grated cocoa-nut, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk in a clean enamelled saucepan, reserving 2 tablespoons for mixing.

  2. Mix the reserved milk with the cornflour and cocoa-nut to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add the sugar to the saucepan and bring the milk to a boil.

  4. Stir in the cornflour and cocoa-nut paste, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens.

Mould and set

  1. Fill a quart mould or two pint moulds with cold water.

  2. Pour the water out without drying the moulds.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture into the moulds.

  4. Place the moulds in a cool place until set.

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. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Cocoa + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together956 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable blanc-mange as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornflour thickens into a set dessert.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds coconut flavour and body to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the blanc-mange.

The step that matters

Stir the paste in continuously as it thickens. Cornflour starch swells and thickens hot liquid, but if it sits unstirred it can settle and form lumps or scorch on the base of the pan, leaving an uneven texture.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Cocoathe original
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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