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Milk Blancmange
Pour a pint of milk into an enamelled saucepan, together with an ounce of isinglass, a tea-spoonful of rose-water, and a table-spoonful of sugar. Stir gently over a clear fire till it nearly comes to boiling point. Remove from the fire, and stir till nearly cool, then pour into a buttered mould. Put in a cool place; turn out next day, and place little mounds of red currant jelly round it.
A plain milk jelly of the sort that filled the sweet course before commercial gelatine desserts existed. Almost everything that needs translating here is the setting agent.
- IsinglassDried collagen from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in shreds or leaves and now largely confined to brewing and conservation supply. Substitute ordinary gelatine, but not ounce for ounce: roughly 1/2 oz (14 g) of powdered gelatine will set a pint of milk to a firm turn-out jelly. Leaf gelatine varies in weight and strength between brands, so go by weight rather than by counting leaves.
- Do not let it boilThis is the hinge. Hard or prolonged boiling weakens both isinglass and gelatine, and a jelly that has been boiled may set softer than intended. Heat only until steam rises and the surface trembles.
- Bloom firstThe original relies on shredded isinglass dissolving as the milk warms. Modern gelatine wants soaking in a little cold milk or water for five minutes first, then stirring into the warm milk until no grains remain on the spoon.
- Stirring till nearly coolNot fussiness. Stirring as the mixture thickens helps it cool and set evenly, and it stops a skin forming on the milk.
- The pintAn imperial pint, 20 fl oz or 570 ml. Using a US 16 fl oz pint with the gelatine quantity above gives a noticeably firmer jelly.
- Buttered mouldButter sets hard in a cool larder and can leave a greasy film on the surface. Rinsing the mould with cold water and leaving it wet, or wiping it with a trace of neutral oil, releases the jelly more cleanly.
- Enamelled saucepanSpecified because bare iron and unlined copper discoloured milk and could give it a metallic taste. Any stainless or non-reactive pan does the same job.
- Rose-waterStrengths vary widely between brands. A teaspoon of a delicate distilled rose-water is mild; a teaspoon of a concentrated one will taste of soap, so add it off the heat and taste as you go.
- Timing and yieldA pint fills a 3-cup mould and serves four. Overnight in the refrigerator is more than enough; four to five hours will usually do, though a full night makes the turn-out easier.
The name comes straight from the French blanc manger, literally "white eating" or "white food" — a medieval preparation of pounded almonds, rice or breadcrumbs and often shredded capon, thickened to a pale mass and served as a savoury-sweet centrepiece. By the Victorian period the meat had gone and the whiteness was the whole point: a blancmange was a milk or almond jelly, turned out of a fluted mould and admired for standing up on the dish. That standing depended on isinglass, prepared from fish bladders and imported in quantity from Russia, which was the finest and most expensive setting agent available before cheap refined gelatine took over the trade in the later nineteenth century. The little mounds of red currant jelly are presumably doing what the garnish always does in these books — supplying colour and acidity against a sweet, almost flavourless white, and perhaps saving the cook from having to tint the jelly itself.