Skip to main content
Dessert

Blanc Mange

A clear almond jelly made with isinglass, egg whites, rice water, and sweet and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 352 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly base

  1. Dissolve isinglass in 1 quart of water.

  2. Boil until reduced to 1 pint.

  3. Add egg whites and rice water.

  4. Sweeten to taste.

  5. Strain through a jelly bag.

Flavor and set

  1. Add sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Scald the almonds in the jelly.

  3. Strain through a hair sieve.

  4. Pour into a china bowl.

  5. Refrigerate overnight.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a dish.

  2. Garnish with blanched almonds and flowers.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Almond + spinachtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together352 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Rice + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together518 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Fish-derived gelatin that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Help clarify the jelly, collecting impurities so the finished jelly is clear.
Sweet almonds
Give the jelly its main nutty almond flavor and body.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, more intense almond aroma and flavor to the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly to taste, balancing the almond flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to 1 pint. Reducing the liquid concentrates the isinglass so the jelly will set firm rather than loose. Boiling too little leaves it weak; boiling too hard can scorch it.

Flavor stand-ins for the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, rice, almond, sugar, brandy):

  1. Arrowrootbetter flavor fit
  2. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Beetrootabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rice, almond, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipes