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Dessert

Almond Blanc Mange

A custard dessert made with milk, sugar, cornstarch, almond extract, and blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a paste of cornstarch with a little cold water.

  2. Stir the paste into the milk and add sugar.

  3. Boil the mixture until thick.

Flavor and set

  1. Flavor with almond extract and stir in chopped almonds.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until very cold.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream, if possible.

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. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it boils and cooks.
Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and provides moisture and creaminess.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the flavor of the milk.
Chopped blanched almonds
Add crunch and nutty texture against the soft set pudding.

The step that matters

Make a paste of cornstarch with a little cold water. Cornstarch clumps if added dry or to hot liquid. Dissolving it in cold water first lets the starch granules disperse evenly, so the milk thickens smoothly when boiled.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Cocoafits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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