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Dessert

Blancmange

A chilled almond and milk dessert made with isinglass, lemon rind, spices, sugar, and cream.

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 base

  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 finely with rose water.

  3. Mix the almond paste with the milk 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, pull out the blancmange, and set it in the center of a dish.

  2. Garnish with slices of orange.

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
Gelling agent that sets the milk mixture into a firm, sliceable blancmange.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the isinglass sets into a creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel to the set dessert.
Sweet almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and body through the almond paste.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the base and adds flavour to the milk.

The step that matters

Boil the milk with isinglass. Isinglass must dissolve fully in hot milk to set evenly; undissolved gelatin leaves grainy or weak patches. Straining afterward removes sediment and almond solids so the final set is smooth.

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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