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Dessert

Chocolate Blancmange

A chocolate custard dessert made with eggs, milk, gelatin, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Soak the gelatin in 1 cup of the milk.

  2. Bring the remaining milk to a boil.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until well combined.

  4. Add the soaked gelatin and the chocolate dissolved in a little of the boiling milk to the yolk mixture, stirring rapidly.

  5. Pour the hot milk over the mixture, beat well, and strain.

Cook and set

  1. Cook the mixture as you would for boiled custard, stirring constantly.

  2. When partly cool, add the vanilla and the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour into wet molds and set in the ice to chill.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and beaten whites lighten the set dessert.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable form as it chills.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard is cooked in and the dessert is set from.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Grated chocolate
Gives the blancmange its chocolate flavor and color.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Stirring constantly and cooking gently keeps the custard smooth and thickened before the gelatin sets it.

“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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