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Dessert

Raspberry Blanc-mange

A raspberry custard dessert made by boiling raspberry juice with corn starch, then setting in molds and serving with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Raspberry Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blanc-mange

  1. Strain the juice from the raspberries and sweeten it to taste.

  2. Place the juice over the fire and bring it to a boil.

  3. Stir in the corn starch that has been wet in cold water. Use 2 tablespoons of corn starch for each pint of juice.

  4. Continue stirring until the mixture is sufficiently cooked.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into molds that have been wet in cold water and set aside to cool.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Corn + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together86 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the raspberry juice into a set, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Raspberry juice
Provides the main flavour and liquid that the starch thickens.

The step that matters

Stirring in the corn starch and cooking until sufficiently cooked. Starch must be fully stirred into the boiling juice to avoid lumps, and it must cook long enough for the starch granules to swell and thicken the liquid, so the blanc-mange sets properly when cooled.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, 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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