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Dessert

Blamange Rubane, Or, Striped Blamange

A gelatin dessert made from blamange, colored with spinach juice, cochineal, saffron, egg yolks, milk, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Blamange Rubane, Or, Striped Blamange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the portions

  1. Prepare blamange in the usual way, making it a little firmer.

  2. Divide the blamange into three or four equal portions.

Colour and thicken

  1. Add spinach juice to one portion for green colour.

  2. Add liquid cochineal or carmine to another portion for red colour.

  3. For a third portion, mix in saffron infusion or stir boiling blamange into beaten egg yolks.

  4. Thicken the egg mixture over gentle heat with 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk.

  5. For additional colour, mix in smooth, boiled chocolate.

Check before unmoulding

  1. Ensure all portions are of similar consistency to prevent separation when unmoulding.

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. Spinach + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Saffron + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard portion and add richness and a smooth, set texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the egg yolk mixture as it thickens.
Spinach juice
Provides the green colour for one portion of the dessert.
Liquid cochineal or carmine
Provides the red colour for one portion of the dessert.

The step that matters

Thicken the egg mixture over gentle heat. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Gentle heat lets them thicken smoothly, so the portion sets evenly and does not curdle.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, egg, milk, chocolate):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Saffronthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, egg, milk, chocolate. 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.

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