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Dessert

Blanc-manger a LA Frangaise

A French custard dessert made with arrowroot, eggs, butter or cream, bitter almonds, orange‑flower water, milk, and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Blanc-manger a LA Frangaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the arrowroot with cold water until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and butter (or cream) to the mixture.

  3. Pound the bitter almonds with orange-flower water to prevent oiling.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk, then add it to the mixture and stir until smooth and thick.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Serve with a hot sauce if desired.

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. Arrowroot + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the dessert its firm, smooth set.
Eggs
Add richness and body, helping the mixture set firmly.
Butter or cream
Adds fat, which gives a silky texture and a softer mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the main liquid base and adds creaminess to the set dessert.
Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic almond aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the milk and stir it into the mixture until thick. Arrowroot thickens only when it is heated, so the mixture must get hot. Constant stirring keeps the starch and beaten eggs from clumping or scrambling, which gives a smooth, even set.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (arrowroot, egg, butter, almond, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against arrowroot, egg, butter, almond, milk. 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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