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Dessert

Corn Flour Blanc-mange

A sweet custard made from corn flour, milk, caster sugar, and vanilla, set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Corn Flour Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blanc-mange

  1. In a bowl, mix ½ cup corn flour with a little milk until smooth.

  2. Boil the remaining milk, then strain it over the corn flour mixture while stirring continuously.

  3. Add ⅓ cup caster sugar and pour the mixture into an enamel saucepan.

  4. Boil for 8 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Add 3 drops of vanilla flavoring 2 minutes before removing from heat.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the blanc-mange into a cold, damp mold and place it in a cool area.

  2. Once cold, turn it out and serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flour
Starch that thickens the milk as it heats, giving the blanc-mange its body and set.
Milk
Liquid base that gives the blanc-mange its creamy body and flavor.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the blanc-mange and adds a little body to the set.

The step that matters

Boil for 8 minutes, stirring constantly. Corn flour starch only thickens fully once it has been heated to boiling. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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