Make sure to mix a little whipped cream with the main preparation before putting it in the whipped cream to incorporate well. Transfer the blancmange to a pastry bag with the cut tip and push it into glasses/small glass jars. Refrigerate for about 2 hours. Blancmange is delicious all on its own or served with various toppings, for example, berry coulis (the recipe is below).

Don’t skip making the slurry—otherwise, you make end up with an uneven mix of cornstarch, and you’ll end up with lumpy blancmange. To make blanc-manger,soak gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes. Split thevanilla beanin half, lengthwise. Put two ounces of isinglass into a pint of water and boil it till it has dissolved. Then strain it into a porcelain skillet, and add to it half a pint of white wine, the grated peel and juice of two large deep-colored oranges, half a pound of loaf-sugar*, and the yolks only of eight eggs that have been well beaten. Mix the whole thoroughly, place it on hot coals and simmer it, stirring it all the time till it boils hard. Then take it off directly, strain it, and put it into molds to congeal. Serve this with macerated berries: mix 4 cups (20oz/568g) fresh or frozen berries (sliced if large) with ½ cup (4oz/115g) granulated sugar. Let sit on the counter for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the berries have released some liquid and a sweet sauce is formed. Soak half a box of gelatin in a cupful of water for an hour. Boil two cups of milk, then add the gelatin, half a cup of grated chocolate rubbed smooth in a little milk, and one cup of sugar. Boil all together eight or ten minutes. Remove from the fire and when nearly cold, beat into this the whipped whites of three eggs flavored with vanilla. This should be served cold with custard made of the yolks, or sugar and cream. Set the molds in a cold place.Take the milk preparation from the refrigerator. Add a few spoons of the whipped cream to the almond blancmange and mix with ahand whisk.

To serve,pour 1 to 2 tablespoons red fruit coulis on top of the blancmange. Decorate with fresh fruit and serve (photo 6). PHOTO 5 PHOTO 6 Expert tips Decorate your blanc-manger with mango ribbons or wedges, fresh pomegranate or kumquats, half of the canned or fresh apricot, pineapple, or kiwi cut into cubes. Heavy cream: the recipe calls for heavy cream with at least 36% fat content. Replace it with whipped cream (30% fat content) or whole milk. You can make a chocolate blancmange as well! Whisk 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 2/3 cup finely chopped dark chocolate into your slurry and proceed as directed! Whisk 1 cup (8oz/225ml) milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to form a slurry. Then, whisk in the sugar and vanilla paste or extract. Set aside.

A clever marketing exercise

It is served cold in glasses, ramekins, small glass jars, or as a dessert set in a mold. Authentically white, it can also be made in different colors. Blancmange variations Transfer the blancmange to apastry bagwith the cut tip and push it into glasses/small glass jars. Refrigerate for about 2 hours. To make red fruit coulis,mix the fruits and sugar in afood processor(except a few for the decoration). Pass it through afine-mesh sieveto obtain a coulis. Refrigerate. Take a teacup of arrow root, put it into a large bowl, and dissolve it in a little cold water. When it is melted, pour off the water, and let the arrow root remain undisturbed. Boil half a pint of unskimmed milk, made very sweet with white sugar, add a beaten nutmeg, and eight or nine blades of mace, mixed with the juice and grated peel of a lemon. When it has boiled long enough to be highly flavored, strain it into a pint and a half of very rich milk or cream, and add a quarter of a pound of sugar. Boil the whole for ten minutes, then strain it, boiling hot, over the arrow root. Stir it well and frequently till cold, then put it into molds and let it set to congeal.

Gently heat the remaining milk in a large saucepan on low heat. Just before it boils, add in the vanilla extract, sugar and the cornstarch slurry.

Just For You

If set in moulds: Dip the mould in hot water for 10-20 seconds to loosen the blancmange from the edges. Trace a knife around the inner edge of the mould if needed, then tip upside down onto a plate. Drizzle with coulis. Stew nice, fresh fruit (cherries, raspberries, and strawberries being the best). Strain off the juice and sweeten to taste. Place it over the fire in a double kettle until it boils. While boiling, stir in cornstarch wet with a little cold water, allowing two tablespoons of cornstarch to each pint of juice. Continue stirring until sufficiently cooked, then pour into molds wet in cold water and set away to cool. Serve with cream and sugar. After all this discussion I decided it was time to road test a couple of blancmange recipes to see why they have dropped off the modern menu – is it simply because they’re regarded as the ‘poor cousin’ to the richer, more stylish panna cotta or bavarois? Or because they became so generic, losing so much of their original mystique, as jelly has, with all the instant shortcuts that have come with technology and industrialised food? Or is it that we can so easily buy ice cream and chilled desserts there’s just no need for home made milk puddings? Nina and her husband ran a dairy at Rouse Hill so enjoyed their own fresh milk, which was probably much richer than the highly processed milk we buy today – its likely that her blancmange was richer and creamier than one we would make today. bitter almonds– a variety of almond with a bitter taste sometimes used as flavoring or in oils. The almond variety sold by the food industry today is the sweet almond. Cornstarch Slurry – Always use cold milk or water when making the slurry as this stops the cornstarch clumping when poured into the rest of the warmed milk.

Pour almond milk and heavy cream into asaucepan. Add sugar and vanilla pod (photo 3), bring to a boil, and let it simmer for a few minutes. Cornflour is not commonly seen in C18th and C19th British cookbooks – you’d find ‘Indian’ corn (referring to its American origins) for polenta-like cornmeal puddings, but until the mid C19th what we know as cornflour was mainly used as a laundry product, used to stiffen aprons, shirt colours and cuffs. Rather than being a milled flour per se, cornflour is actually corn starch, extracted from the germ and endosperm of the maize kernel, dried and processed into a fine powder. Household management books such as Mrs Beeton’s include receipts for the laundress, for the formula to convert the cornstarch into an early version of ironing spray. And today, cornstarch is used as an alternative to talcum powder. Serve with the fruit in the teacups or carefully unmold the blancmange onto plates by dipping the cup in hot water and then running a thin knife, carefully, around the rim. And Nina’s pink blancmange? Fruit was added to the isinglass blancmanges in the C19th, and the Rouse’s copy of Warne’s Model Cookery features strawberry blancmange, but as Eliza Acton points out – a strawberry or pink blancmange is, of course, an argument in terms, as it is not white. She suggests it should instead be called a ‘moulded strawberry cream’ or a bavarois‘Bavarian cream’ such as we might make these days, fruit puree and cream set with gelatine. Putting it to the testTo make red fruit coulis,mix the fruits and sugar in afood processor, except a few for the decoration (photo 1).