You can make one large blancmange instead of six small individual blancmanges if you prefer. Simply pour it into a mold or pan of your choice and let set. 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 test Stir the almonds by degrees into a quart of cream, alternately with half a pound of powdered white sugar, and adding a teaspoon of beaten mace. Put in the melted isinglass and stir the whole very hard. Then put it into a porcelain skillet and let it boil fast for a quarter of an hour. Strain it into a pitcher and pour it into your molds, which must first be wetted with cold water. Let it stand in a cool place undisturbed till it has entirely congealed. Then wrap a cloth dipped in hot water round the molds, loosen the blancmange round the edges with a knife, and turn it out into glass dishes. Instead of using a figure-mold, you may set it to congeal in tea-cups or wine glasses.

You can store any leftover blancmange in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Be sure to cover it well! Make More Fine Desserts 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. Make sure to mix a little whipped cream with the main preparation before putting it in the whipped cream to incorporate well.

Ancient origins

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. To make red fruit coulis,mix the fruits and sugar in afood processor, except a few for the decoration (photo 1). Milk– We usually use whole milk / full cream dairy milk. Sub with almond milk for a dairy free option. This recipe is part of my Bold Baking Worldwide series. You should try the last three recipes, Portuguese Custard Tarts, Maamoul, and Bananas Foster, too! We still buy cornflour based custard powders (basically sweetened, coloured cornflour) but blancmange powders which were sold in my grandmother’s day have long disappeared. While the cornflour blancmange recipe has survived in The Commonsense Cookery book, blancmanges seem to have slipped from our modern dessert repertoire. The gelatine based blancmange is still with us to some degree, in the richer and more appealingly named Italian panna cotta which uses cream rather than milk, vanilla or other flavouring, and set with gelatine.

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. 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. Before commercial gelatin was produced, Irish Moss and isinglass were used. Irish moss is a reddish purple moss found in the Atlantic Ocean coastline, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. And Isinglass is a form of collagen made from the dried fish bladders of fish. Historic cook books provide a reasonable chronology albeit a random selection of texts: Raffald (1769) bases hers on calf’s feet jelly (home made gelatine) but still calls for bitter almonds; Acton (1845), Beeton (1861 & c1902) and Cassell’s (c1890) all ask for isinglass. Isinglass produced a fine, crystal clear gel (it is still used to clarify some wines), but by the end of the C19th century it had given way to the relatively new and convenient ‘instant’ or dried gelatine that emerged with new processing technologies, and many recipes that used isinglass were re-written in gelatine’s favour. Beeton also includes an ‘Arrowroot blancmange’ , a precursor to cornflour blancmange. The Kookaburra cookbook (1912), The Goulburn and The Golden Wattle cookery books (post 1930) all use gelatine. Interestingly the Kookaburra Cookery book recipe is enriched with eggs, rendering it, in the purists’ eyes, a custard pudding rather than a blancmange; the Golden Wattle also includes a ‘Cornflour mould’ which is almost identical to The Commonsense Cookery Book (1914 – 2014 editions) balncmange. The wash-up from all this they are essentially, variations on a sweetened milk pudding with a flavouring of some kind – rose or blossom water, laurel or bay leaves, lemon peel, ‘essence’– almond or vanilla perhaps. Several recipes instruct that you stand the blancmange mould in a shallow basin of iced or cold water until it sets – the coldest water Nina did knew of on a hot summer’s day was a few metres below ground in the well. A clever marketing exercise

A clever marketing exercise

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. Sugar– Regular white sugar is fine, sub with brown sugar, coconut sugar or honey if you prefer. We used white sugar in the blanc manger and raw sugar in the coulis for a richer berry flavour. 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! Our ‘Marching on’ post included an introductory video for Rouse Hill House and Farm and its rich food heritage. In it we talk about blancmange, a chilled milk-based dessert dish that Nina Rouse used to make for her children and later, her grandchildren. Nina’s granddaughter Miriam Hamilton has fond childhood memories of pink blancmange being made in a fluted enamel mould, which still remains in the Rouse Hill house collection today. In hot weather, if there was no ice available, Nina would suspend the blancmange in the house’s cistern to allow the pudding to set. Kitchen alchemy 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.