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Dessert

Apricot Blanc-mange, or Crème Pauisienne

A chilled apricot custard made with isinglass, milk, cream, sugar, apricot jam, and optional lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apricot Blanc-mange, or Crème Pauisienne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in the milk or thin cream and strain it through muslin.

  2. In a clean saucepan, combine the strained mixture with the sugar and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the rich cream gradually, starting with small amounts.

Add the jam and finish

  1. Mix the hot mixture into the apricot jam until smooth.

  2. Stir until nearly cold to prevent the jam from sinking.

  3. Add lemon juice for improved flavor, if desired.

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

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

  2. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine isinglass
Sets the liquid as it cools, giving the blanc-mange its firm, wobbly structure.
Milk or thin cream
Forms the liquid base that carries the isinglass and gives a soft, creamy body.
Rich cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and a softer, velvety texture.
Apricot jam
Supplies the main apricot flavor, sweetness and colour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apricot.

The step that matters

Stir until nearly cold after adding the jam. Apricot jam is dense and will sink through the warm liquid if left still. Stirring while the mixture cools keeps the jam evenly distributed as the isinglass begins to set, so the finished dish is uniform rather than layered.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, cream, apricot):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cream, apricot. 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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