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Dessert

Quince Blahange, with Almond Cream

A dessert made by blending blanched almonds into a paste, mixing with quince juice, straining, sweetening, and setting into a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Quince Blahange, with Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond cream

  1. Blend the almonds with a few drops of water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Pour the boiling quince juice over the almond paste and mix well.

  3. Strain the mixture through a cloth held by two people to extract the cream.

Set and mold

  1. Return the juice to the heat, add the sugar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the isinglass and simmer for 5 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  3. Stir the mixture until it cools slightly, then mold it for serving.

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. Quince + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide the creamy base and nutty flavour of the almond cream.
Quince juice
Supplies the fruity, tart flavour and liquid for the dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the quince juice.
Fine isinglass
Gelatinises the liquid so the mixture sets firm enough to mold.

The step that matters

Skimming while simmering the isinglass. Isinglass is a gelatin-like setting agent, and scum rising during simmering can cloud the set and spoil the clarity and texture. Removing it keeps the mold clean and smooth.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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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