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Dessert

Blanc-Manger a LA Vanille

A custard made from almond milk, sugar, vanilla, and clarified isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Blanc-Manger a LA Vanille

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Cut the vanilla stick into small pieces.

  2. Boil the sugar to a caramel, add the vanilla, and let it cool.

  3. Dissolve the caramel in warm water and place it on red ashes to melt.

Make the almond milk

  1. Pound the almonds and moisten them with 1½ pints of water.

  2. Squeeze the milk from the almonds and divide it into two equal parts.

Assemble and set

  1. In one part, mix the vanilla syrup, strained through a silk sieve.

  2. In the other part, mix 6 ounces of sugar dissolved in warm water, also strained.

  3. Add ½ ounce of isinglass to each part and fill the mold with alternate layers of white and yellow.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Almonds
Pounded and steeped in water to release the milk that forms the custard base.
Isinglass
Gelatinous setting agent that firms the almond milk so the layers hold their shape when cooled.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when caramelised, the colour and flavour of the yellow layer.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and flavour to the caramel syrup used in the yellow layer.

The step that matters

Adding the isinglass to each part. Isinglass must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into each part before the layers are poured. Unevenly dissolved setting agent can leave lumps or weak patches, so the layers may not hold together when the custard is turned out.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vanilla):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Macadamia nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla. 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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