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Dessert

Blancmange

A sweet almond and milk dessert made by boiling milk with isinglass, lemon rind, spices, sugar, and almond paste, then setting in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Blancmange

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond 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 ↓

Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with isinglass, lemon rind, cinnamon, mace, and lump sugar for a few minutes.

  2. Blanch and pound the bitter and sweet almonds with rose water until fine.

  3. Mix the almond paste with the milk mixture and strain through a fine sieve into a basin.

  4. Add the cream and let it stand for 30 minutes.

  5. Pour into another basin, leaving sediment behind, and when nearly cold, fill into molds.

Serve

  1. To serve, run your finger around the mold, invert onto a dish, and garnish with orange slices.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 milk into a sliceable, wobbly set.
New milk
Forms the main body of the liquid that sets into the blancmange.
Good cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier mouthfeel to the set dessert.
Sweet almonds
Contribute nutty almond flavour and body from the pounded paste.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the milk and adds to the dessert's flavour balance.

The step that matters

Leaving sediment behind when pouring. Pouring into a second basin leaves the fine almond and isinglass sediment behind, keeping the set blancmange smooth and clear rather than grainy at the base.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More blancmange recipes

Arrowroot 42Rice 24Chocolate 15Cornstarch 14Lemon 14Almond 13 See all 129 →

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