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Dessert

Another Way to Make Blancmange

A custard dessert made from sweet and bitter almonds, cream, milk, and aromatics, set with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon 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 ↓

Another Way to Make Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds with the ratafia or rose water.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in a small amount of warm milk.

  3. Add the dissolved isinglass to the cream.

  4. Mix in the almond paste, lemon peel, and cinnamon.

  5. Sweeten with pounded loaf sugar.

Cook and set

  1. Let it stand for 2-3 hours.

  2. Pour into a saucepan and stir constantly while boiling for 6-8 minutes.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve and stir until nearly cold.

  4. Pour into a 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. Almond + cinnamontop 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body once pounded into a paste.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the cooled cream into a sliceable blancmange.
Cream
Supplies rich fat and smooth, creamy texture as the base of the dessert.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the mixture and contributes to its overall flavour balance.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while boiling. Cream and milk scorch easily on the base of a pan, and the isinglass can be weakened by overheating. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour and lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, rose, cream, milk, cinnamon, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rose, cream, milk, cinnamon, sugar. 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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