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Cornstarch Blanc Mange
This is an especially wholesome dessert for children. To make enough for five persons allow one pint of milk; one-half teaspoon of salt; one teaspoon of vanilla; two tablespoons of cornstarch; two tablespoons of sugar. Wet the cornstarch in one-half cup of the milk; then heat the rest of the milk in a milk-boiler and when it is boiling add the cornstarch. Cook eight or ten minutes and then put in the salt and sugar. Remove from the fire and when partly cooled add the vanilla. Turn the mixture into a pudding-dish that has been previously wet with cold water and set it away in a cool place. When cold and firm turn it out of the dish and serve with it a cream or chocolate sauce.
A plain cornstarch pudding, set firm enough to unmold. The whole thing hinges on cooking the starch long enough to lose its raw taste while stirring hard enough to keep it smooth.
- Milk-boilerThis is a double boiler: an inner pan set over simmering water. Milk scorches easily on direct heat, and the gentle temperature is why the book specifies it. A heavy saucepan over medium-low heat works if you stir constantly.
- Slurry firstWetting the cornstarch in half a cup of cold milk before it meets the hot milk is not optional. Cornstarch dropped dry into hot liquid seizes into lumps that no amount of beating will dissolve.
- Cook it outEight to ten minutes over water is right. The mixture thickens within a minute or two, but the starch needs the extra time to lose its chalky flavor. Stir the whole time or the bottom sets into a skin.
- The saltHalf a teaspoon in a pint is heavy by current taste, especially against only two tablespoons of sugar. A quarter teaspoon reads better; if you increase the sugar, the original salt is less noticeable.
- SweetnessTwo tablespoons of sugar to a pint is barely sweet, which suits the sauce the recipe calls for. Served plain, many cooks today would want three to four tablespoons.
- Adding vanilla lastVanilla extract is alcohol-based and its aroma flies off in a hot pan. Waiting until the pudding is partly cooled keeps the flavor in the dish.
- Wetting the moldRinsing the dish with cold water and not drying it leaves a film that keeps the pudding from gripping the sides. It is the whole trick to turning it out cleanly. Individual cups or a single mold both work, allowing for a little over two cups of mixture.
- Setting time"A cool place" would have meant a larder, cellar or similar; refrigerate it, and give it at least three hours, better four, before attempting to unmold. Press plastic wrap onto the surface if you object to a skin.
- YieldFive small servings as written, or four generous ones. It is best eaten within a day or two, as starch-set puddings weep on standing.
Blanc mange is medieval and its name is simply French for "white food" — the original was a pounded almond and chicken or fish dish, thickened with rice, that gradually shed its meat and became a sweet. By the eighteenth century it was set with isinglass or calf's-foot gelatin and flavored with almonds, and it was expensive, fussy work. What made a version like this one possible was refined cornstarch, produced commercially in the United States from the middle of the nineteenth century and marketed hard to home cooks as a cheap, reliable thickener; brand pamphlets pushed exactly this sort of milk pudding. By the time the Butterick book appeared, blanc mange had become nursery food, which is why the entry opens by recommending it for children — bland, white, digestible, and cheap enough to make with what was already in the house.