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Dessert

Chocolate Blancmange

A sweet milk-based dessert thickened with isinglass, sugar, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Soak the isinglass in the milk for 20 minutes.

  2. Heat the milk and isinglass mixture until it boils, stirring constantly.

  3. Strain the mixture into a basin.

  4. Add the castor sugar and powdered chocolate, stirring occasionally until nearly cool.

Mould

  1. Pour the mixture into a wetted mold.

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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the sugar and chocolate and dissolves the isinglass.
Isinglass
Sets the liquid as it cools, giving the blancmange its firm, wobbly texture.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Powdered chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and colour, and adds body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Heat the milk and isinglass until it boils, stirring constantly. Isinglass must fully dissolve to set properly, and constant stirring prevents the milk from scorching or sticking to the base 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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