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Chocolate Blanc-Mange
In one-half cup of milk soften one-fourth box of Larkin Gelatine. Scald one and one-half cups of milk, and stir into it two ounces of unsweetened chocolate, a pinch of Larkin Table Salt, and one-half cup of sugar; when smooth, take from fire and add Gelatine and onehalf teaspoon of Larkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract. Mold and serve with whipped cream.
A simple gelatine dessert whose only real difficulty is the gelatine measurement, which is given in a package size no longer sold.
- A quarter box of gelatineGranulated gelatine of this period was generally sold in one-ounce boxes divided into four wrappers, so one-fourth box is likely to be about one envelope of modern unflavored gelatine (about 2 1/4 teaspoons, 1/4 oz). That is the usual amount for setting the 2 cups of liquid here firmly enough to turn out of a mold.
- Soften means bloomSprinkle the gelatine over the cold half cup of milk and leave it five minutes until it swells and goes opaque. Adding dry gelatine to the hot chocolate milk gives you grains that never dissolve.
- Do not boil after the gelatine goes inThe gelatine is added off the heat for a reason. Prolonged boiling weakens its setting power, and the mixture only needs to be warm enough to dissolve the softened grains completely.
- ScaldHeat the milk to about 180F, when it steams and a ring of small bubbles forms at the edge. It should not come to a rolling boil.
- The chocolateTwo ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped, is still sold as such. Cocoa powder is not a substitute at equal weight; the recipe relies on the cocoa butter for body and gloss.
- MoldingRinse the mold with cold water or wipe it with a film of neutral oil before filling. Chill at least 4 hours, or overnight, then dip the mold briefly in warm water to release.
- YieldAbout 2 1/2 cups after the gelatine and sugar go in, which serves four in small molds or ramekins.
- Larkin productsLarkin gelatine, salt and vanilla were the company's own house brands. Any unflavored gelatine, table salt and vanilla extract does the same work.
Blanc-mange is French for "white food," and the original was exactly that: a pale dish of almond milk thickened with rice, often with shredded capon or fish, served to invalids and at banquets, running back through medieval European cookery. Isinglass-set versions belong to a later period. By the late nineteenth century the name had loosened to mean almost any molded milk pudding, which is how a chocolate version could sit under a title meaning "white," untroubled. The recipe comes from a Larkin Company cookbook, apparently one of the premium booklets mail-order firms distributed to sell their own branded groceries, so every named ingredient here is a house product; commercial granulated gelatine, cheap and reliable in packets, is what made this sort of dessert a weeknight possibility rather than a project involving calves' feet.