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Dessert

A Richer Blancmange

A dessert made from milk, isinglass, lemon rind, spices, sugar, almonds, rosewater, and cream, set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond 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 ↓

A Richer Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the milk base

  1. Simmer 1½ pints of new milk with 1 ounce of isinglass, lemon rind, cinnamon, and mace until the isinglass dissolves.

  2. Sweeten the mixture with 2½ ounces of loaf sugar.

  3. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds with 1 tablespoon of rosewater.

  4. Mix the almonds into the milk.

Strain and set

  1. Strain the mixture through a linen sieve or new flannel into ½ pint of rich cream and stir thoroughly.

  2. Let it stand for 1 hour.

  3. Pour off into another basin, leaving sediment behind.

  4. When nearly cold, pour into molds.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly gel as it cools.
New milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the isinglass sets.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the set dessert.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the almond flavour.
Sweet almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and body to the milk mixture.

The step that matters

Simmering the milk with isinglass until it dissolves. Isinglass must fully dissolve in hot liquid to set properly. If it is undissolved or the mixture is not kept hot enough, grains remain and the blancmange will not set evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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