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LEMON BLANCMANGE (another way)
Put half a pint of milk into a saucepan with the thin rind of a lemon and two ounces of ground rice, and stir the mixture over the fire until it thickens. Add some custard made with half a pint of milk and the well-beaten yolks of three eggs, and mix both custard and ground rice thoroughly; sweeten with a quarter of a pound of sugar, add half an ounce of isinglass or gelatine, dissolved in another half-pint of milk, and when nearly cold stir in the strained lemon-juice. Put the mixture into an oiled mould, and turn it out when wanted. Time, an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. 2d. Sufficient for a quart mould.
A Victorian moulded milk pudding set with both starch and gelatine, which is why it unmoulds cleanly instead of slumping. The order of operations matters more than anything else here.
- The hinge: lemon juice goes in last, and coldAcid added to hot milk will curdle it, and the strained juice thins the set slightly, so the gelatine needs to be fully dissolved first. Wait until the mixture is barely warm, stir the juice in evenly, then mould at once before it begins to gel in the bowl.
- Half a pint, three times overThese are imperial half-pints, 10 fl oz or about 1 1/4 US cups each — roughly 850 ml of milk in total across the three stages. The finished volume fills a quart (roughly 1.1 litre) mould, serving six to eight.
- Isinglass or gelatineIsinglass is dried fish swim bladder, historically sturgeon, sold in shreds or sheets as a setting agent and now largely confined to brewing. Use plain gelatine: half an ounce is about 14 g, so two 7 g sachets, bloomed then dissolved in the third half-pint of warmed milk without boiling.
- Ground riceThis is rice ground coarser than rice flour but not as fine as flour — sold as ground rice or rice semolina, and rice flour will do at a slightly softer set. Two ounces is about 57 g. Stir constantly; it catches on the pan base the moment it thickens.
- The custardThree yolks in half a pint of milk should be cooked over gentle heat to about 82C/180F, until it coats a spoon, and no further. Combining it with the hot ground rice does the rest of the thickening, so pull the custard off early rather than late.
- Sweetness and the rindA quarter pound is 115 g of sugar, generous by modern taste for this quantity — 75-85 g gives a cleaner lemon flavour. Pare the rind in wide strips with no white pith and lift it out before the custard goes in.
- Setting timeThe stated hour covers preparation only. Allow four to six hours in the refrigerator, or overnight, before turning out.
- Oiling and unmouldingA flavourless oil, wiped thin, is still the best release for a starch-and-gelatine mould. Dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert onto a wetted plate so the blancmange can be slid into position.
Blancmange is literally "white food", and the medieval dish of that name was a savoury-sweet pounded mixture of almond milk, rice and shredded capon. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the 1870s and 80s the word meant any moulded milk sweet stiffened with ground rice, cornflour, arrowroot or isinglass, and the book carries many "another way" variants using different thickeners. This version hedges its bets by using both starch and gelatine, which gives the firm, sharply detailed shape that Victorian dinner tables wanted from a mould. The cost is quoted as 1s. 2d.; isinglass, imported and expensive, is offered here as the older option with gelatine already listed as the equal alternative.