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Gelatine Blanc Mange
2 quarts of rich milk. 12 ounces of sugar. 2 ounces of gelatine. Flavorings. 1 small cupful of cream to whiten it.
Set the milk over the fire in a bright kettle with the sugar and gelatine in it, and stir them occasionally with a wire egg beater till the gelatine is all dissolved, but do not let it boil lest the milk curdle. Strain it into a pan and set away to cool. After it has cooled star in the flavoring--lemon, vanilla, almond, cinnamon or any other-and the cup of cream. Pour it into molds or custard cups, or an inch deep in milk pans, to be cut when set, in squares or diamonds and served with cream or diluted fruit jelly. The foregoing is the basis of several kinds of creams to be described further on, and will be referred to and not repeated.
A useful rule to keep in mind is--1 1/2 ounces of gelatine to a quart of water for jelly, etc., but 1 ounce only to a quart of milk. Cooper's sheet gelatine sells at about half the price of the imported kinds; it is tasteless and as good as any except that is liable to curdle the milk on actual boiling. The transparent gelatines or isinglass, on the other hand, are as liable to burn on the bottom and are troublesome to dissolve.
A working base recipe rather than a finished dessert, and its ratios are still sound. The one thing to hold onto is the temperature.
- Never let it boilThe milk is heated only until the gelatine dissolves, well short of a simmer; the recipe gives no temperature. Boiling risks curdling, and prolonged high heat can also weaken gelatine's setting power.
- The gelatine ratio2 ounces to 2 quarts is the author's own rule of 1 ounce per quart of milk. In modern powdered gelatine 2 ounces is eight ¼-ounce envelopes, considerably more than a present-day milk pudding would use, so scale down and test if you want a spoonable rather than a sliceable set.
- Sheet versus powderCooper's sheet gelatine was an unflavored leaf product; today's sheets come in graded strengths (bronze through platinum) and are not interchangeable by weight with powder without checking the bloom rating. Whichever you use, soften it in cold liquid for five to ten minutes before it goes near heat.
- IsinglassThe "transparent gelatines or isinglass" of the note were fish-derived setting agents, now largely confined to brewing and conservation work. The author's complaint that they scorch and dissolve badly suggests one reason they lost ground to sheet and powdered gelatine.
- Flavor after coolingExtracts are volatile; adding lemon, vanilla or almond to hot milk drives off most of the aroma. Stir them in once the mixture is lukewarm but still fluid, and use almond extract rather than any bitter-almond oil.
- StrainingNot optional. Undissolved gelatine grains and any skin that forms will show as rubbery specks in a set cream.
- Setting time and moldsFour to six hours refrigerated for individual cups; overnight for a large mold. Rinse molds with cold water before filling and they will release with a brief dip in warm water.
- YieldTwo quarts of base gives roughly 12 to 16 half-cup servings, or a single large mold. Halve it comfortably if you are not feeding a household of the size this book assumes.
Blancmange began in medieval European cookery as a genuinely white dish — pounded almonds, rice and shredded capon or fish, its name simply meaning "white eating" — and only migrated to the sweet side of the meal over several centuries. By the time this book was written the almonds and poultry were long gone and the dish had become a set milk pudding, stiffened variously with isinglass, calf's-foot jelly, arrowroot, cornstarch or, increasingly, commercial gelatine. That shift is the real subject of the note appended here: the appearance of cheap, reliable, tasteless sheet gelatine took a preparation that had once required a day of boiling bones and made it quick work. The Cooper's brand mentioned is generally traced to the gelatine works associated with Peter Cooper, the New York industrialist, whose product predated the packaged granulated gelatines that would dominate American kitchens by the turn of the century. The author's habit of treating the recipe as a "basis" to be referred back to rather than repeated suggests a kitchen turning out variations on a single foundation.