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Arrowroot Blancmange
Mix two ounces of arrowroot with a cupful of water, taking care to make it quite smooth. Put a pint and a half of milk into a saucepan with the rind of a lemon and a table-spoonful of sugar, and when it boils, strain it, and pour it over the arrowroot. Set it on the fire to thicken, and before pouring into the mould, which must be well oiled, add a little brandy. It is better to oil the mould than to soak it in water, as it gives the blancmange a glistening appearance. Garnish with bright red jelly or jam. Time, half an hour. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 6d., without the jam and brandy.
A Victorian starch-set milk pudding that depends entirely on how you treat the arrowroot. Everything else is timing and patience.
- Do not boil the arrowrootArrowroot thickens at around 170-180F and then breaks down if held at a rolling boil, turning the mixture thin and slack. Bring it just to the point of thickening, stir until it coats the spoon, and take it off the heat.
- Quantities in modern termsTwo ounces of arrowroot is about 56 g, roughly half a cup. A pint and a half is imperial, so 30 fl oz or about 850 ml of milk; 'a cupful' was not a standardised measure, but somewhere around 8 to 10 fl oz of water for the slaking.
- The lemon rindPare it in strips with no white pith, which turns bitter in hot milk. Infusing it in the milk as it comes to the boil, then straining, is the whole of the flavouring apart from the brandy.
- Slake, then temperThe arrowroot must be lump-free in cold water before the hot milk goes in, and the milk should be poured over it in a steady stream while stirring rather than the paste dropped into the pan.
- Brandy off the heatAdd it once the mixture has thickened and left the fire, or the alcohol simply steams away. A tablespoon or two is plenty for this volume.
- Oiling the mouldA flavourless oil, brushed thinly, is what the original intends; almond oil was one of the oils used for this. Too much pools in the base and leaves a greasy patch on the turned-out pudding.
- What the half hour coversThat is the cooking, not the setting. An arrowroot blancmange needs several hours cold, and overnight is safer, since it tends to set softer than a gelatine or cornflour mould.
- Turning outLoosen the edge with a fingertip and invert onto a wetted plate so the blancmange can be slid into position. A brief dip of the mould in warm water helps if it resists.
Blancmange began life as the medieval blanc manger, a genuinely white dish of pounded capon or fish with almonds, rice and sugar; by the nineteenth century the meat had gone and the name attached to any pale milk pudding set firm in a shape. What set it varied with the household budget -- isinglass, gelatine, Irish moss, cornflour, or as here arrowroot, the starch extracted from the rhizome of Maranta arundinacea and imported chiefly from the West Indies. Arrowroot carried a particular reputation in Victorian kitchens as a food for invalids and children, being bland, easily digested and reliably smooth, which is why it turns up so often in the sickroom chapters of period cookery books as well as the pudding ones. The recipe reflects that double life: a lesson in handling starch as much as a dessert, and the note on cost at sixpence tells you it was meant to be within reach of a modest table.