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Dessert

Rice Blanc-mange

Rice Blanc-Mange is a sweet rice pudding made with ground rice, milk, sugar, butter, and flavorings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the ground rice with ½ cup of milk to form a smooth batter.

Make the blanc-mange

  1. In a saucepan, combine the remaining milk, sugar, butter, and your choice of flavoring.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the rice batter to the boiling mixture and cook until thickened, stirring continuously.

  4. Pour into molds and refrigerate until set.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + laureltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the blanc-mange its body and set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice starch thickens into a creamy custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the dessert and adds to its smooth, soft texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished set dessert.

The step that matters

Add the rice batter to the boiling mixture. Ground rice thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid. Adding the batter to a steady boil while stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base, and cooking until thickened ensures the starch has gelatinized enough to set once chilled.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, butter, milk, lemon, laurel. 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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