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Dessert

Chocolate Blanc Mange

A chilled chocolate dessert made with gelatin, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 cup of milk for 1 hour.

  2. Heat the remaining milk to boiling.

  3. Stir in the soaked gelatine until dissolved.

Make the mousse

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar with the beaten egg yolks until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the scalding milk mixture to the yolk mixture, stirring continuously.

  3. Return the mixture to a saucepan and heat gently, stirring until it almost boils.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites and vanilla.

  5. Pour into molds that have been wet with cold water and let 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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so the mousse holds its shape when cold.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard base, and whipped whites lighten the texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine and egg mixture set within.
Sugar
Sweetens the mousse and balances the richness of the chocolate and eggs.
Grated chocolate
Gives the mousse its chocolate flavour.

The step that matters

Heat the custard gently until it almost boils. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if they get too hot they curdle and turn grainy. Stirring constantly and stopping just short of boiling keeps the custard 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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