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Dessert

Chocolate Blancmange

A gelatin-based dessert made with milk, chocolate, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of milk until softened.

  2. Mix the grated chocolate and sugar with a little milk to form a smooth paste.

Make the blancmange

  1. Heat the remaining ½ cup of milk with the soaked gelatine until nearly boiling.

  2. Stir in the chocolate paste and sugar, and boil for 12 minutes, stirring continuously.

  3. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and let it 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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

Leaf gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly structure as it cools.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the gelatine sets and the chocolate flavours.
Grated chocolate
Gives the dessert its chocolate flavour and dark colour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stir in the chocolate paste and sugar, and boil for 12 minutes, stirring continuously.. Gelatine needs to be fully dissolved into the hot liquid to set properly. Continuous stirring prevents the milk and chocolate from scorching or sticking to the pan, and keeps the paste smooth.

“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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