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Dessert

Chocolate Blanc Mange

A light chocolate dessert made with cornstarch, milk, chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Moisten cornstarch with cold milk.

  2. Slowly add hot milk and cook in a double boiler until smooth and thick.

  3. Stir in melted chocolate and sugar, then remove from heat.

Finish and set

  1. Add vanilla and pour the mixture into beaten egg whites.

  2. Transfer to a mold and let 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. 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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, firm custard base.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they give the mousse its light, airy texture.
Chocolate
Adds rich flavor and helps firm the mousse as it cools.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the mousse and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Pour the warm mixture into the beaten egg whites. Egg white foam is fragile and can deflate if the mixture is stirred in roughly or the whites were not beaten to a firm foam first. Folding gently keeps the air trapped, which gives the mousse its light texture.

“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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