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Dessert

Chocolate Blanc-mange

A chocolate blanc-mange made with milk, sugar, corn starch, grated chocolate, vanilla, and optional egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Make the chocolate milk

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the grated chocolate in a bowl. Stir until dissolved.

  3. Return the mixture to the heat. Stir until smooth.

Thicken

  1. In a small bowl, mix the corn-starch with a little cold water until smooth.

  2. When the milk boils again, pour in the corn-starch.

  3. Stir constantly for 4 to 5 minutes until thickened.

  4. Taste to ensure the corn-starch is smooth and cooked. If not, continue to stir and boil.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Stir in enough sugar to make it very sweet.

  7. Add vanilla to taste.

  8. If desired, add the yolks of 2 eggs.

Mold and serve

  1. Rinse a 3-pint mold with cold water.

  2. Drain the mold.

  3. Pour in the mixture, which should be thick.

  4. Set aside in a cold place for several hours until firm.

  5. Serve with cream or cold custard sauce.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Corn-starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, firm pudding as it cooks.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and dissolves into the milk to color it.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a pudding.
Eggs
Optional yolks add richness and extra body to the pudding.

The step that matters

Cooking the corn-starch until smooth and fully thickened. Starch must be stirred constantly and boiled until its granules swell and gelatinize. Undercooked starch leaves a raw, pasty taste and fails to set firmly, so the mixture should be tested before removing it from heat.

“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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