Kilo L30R Traditional Jelly Mould-Red, Plastic,5.91 x 3.94 x 5.91 cm; 70 Grams

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Then pour the blancmange into the whipped cream. Gently mix by lifting the mixture with the whisk (photo 5). To serve,pour 1 to 2 tablespoons red fruit coulis on top of the blancmange. Decorate with fresh fruit and serve (photo 6). PHOTO 5 PHOTO 6 Expert tips Heavy cream: the recipe calls for heavy cream with at least 36% fat content. Replace it with whipped cream (30% fat content) or whole milk. To make red fruit coulis,mix the fruits and sugar in afood processor(except a few for the decoration). Pass it through afine-mesh sieveto obtain a coulis. Refrigerate.

Sprinkle the blancmange with toasted flaked almonds, shredded coconut, fresh or toasted coconut shaving, white chocolate shavings, or cranberries and raisins mixture. Whisk whipping cream with an electric mixer into whipped cream. Take the milk preparation from the refrigerator. Add a few spoons of cream to the almond blancmange and mix with a hand whisk. Then pour the blancmange into the whipped cream. Gently mix by lifting the mixture with the whisk. It is served cold in glasses, ramekins, small glass jars, or as a dessert set in a mold. Authentically white, it can also be made in different colors. Blancmange variations The oldest recipe that can be found is written in Danish, which may have been translated from a German cookbook.

Kitchen alchemy

Our ‘Marching on’ post included an introductory video for Rouse Hill House and Farm and its rich food heritage. In it we talk about blancmange, a chilled milk-based dessert dish that Nina Rouse used to make for her children and later, her grandchildren. Nina’s granddaughter Miriam Hamilton has fond childhood memories of pink blancmange being made in a fluted enamel mould, which still remains in the Rouse Hill house collection today. In hot weather, if there was no ice available, Nina would suspend the blancmange in the house’s cistern to allow the pudding to set. Kitchen alchemy Cornflour is not commonly seen in C18th and C19th British cookbooks – you’d find ‘Indian’ corn (referring to its American origins) for polenta-like cornmeal puddings, but until the mid C19th what we know as cornflour was mainly used as a laundry product, used to stiffen aprons, shirt colours and cuffs. Rather than being a milled flour per se, cornflour is actually corn starch, extracted from the germ and endosperm of the maize kernel, dried and processed into a fine powder. Household management books such as Mrs Beeton’s include receipts for the laundress, for the formula to convert the cornstarch into an early version of ironing spray. And today, cornstarch is used as an alternative to talcum powder. Stir the almonds by degrees into a quart of cream, alternately with half a pound of powdered white sugar, and adding a teaspoon of beaten mace. Put in the melted isinglass and stir the whole very hard. Then put it into a porcelain skillet and let it boil fast for a quarter of an hour. Strain it into a pitcher and pour it into your molds, which must first be wetted with cold water. Let it stand in a cool place undisturbed till it has entirely congealed. Then wrap a cloth dipped in hot water round the molds, loosen the blancmange round the edges with a knife, and turn it out into glass dishes. Instead of using a figure-mold, you may set it to congeal in tea-cups or wine glasses. Whisk 1 cup (8oz/225ml) milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to form a slurry. Then, whisk in the sugar and vanilla paste or extract. Set aside.

Gently heat the remaining milk in a large saucepan on low heat. Just before it boils, add in the vanilla extract, sugar and the cornstarch slurry.Decorate your blanc-manger with mango ribbons or wedges, fresh pomegranate or kumquats, half of the canned or fresh apricot, pineapple, or kiwi cut into cubes. If set in moulds: Dip the mould in hot water for 10-20 seconds to loosen the blancmange from the edges. Trace a knife around the inner edge of the mould if needed, then tip upside down onto a plate. Drizzle with coulis.

Bring the final touch to the dessert with lime zest and a mint leaf. Why you should try this recipe You can make a chocolate blancmange as well! Whisk 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 2/3 cup finely chopped dark chocolate into your slurry and proceed as directed! Put two ounces of isinglass into a pint of water and boil it till it has dissolved. Then strain it into a porcelain skillet, and add to it half a pint of white wine, the grated peel and juice of two large deep-colored oranges, half a pound of loaf-sugar*, and the yolks only of eight eggs that have been well beaten. Mix the whole thoroughly, place it on hot coals and simmer it, stirring it all the time till it boils hard. Then take it off directly, strain it, and put it into molds to congeal. Soak half a pound of tapioca in one pint of milk for half an hour, then boil till tender. Add a pinch of salt, sweeten to taste and put into a mold. When cold, turn it out and serve with strawberry or raspberry jam around it and a little cream. Flavor with lemon or vanilla. In a saucepan, heat the remaining 3½ cups (28oz/790ml) of milk over medium-low heat until it starts to steam.We still buy cornflour based custard powders (basically sweetened, coloured cornflour) but blancmange powders which were sold in my grandmother’s day have long disappeared. While the cornflour blancmange recipe has survived in The Commonsense Cookery book, blancmanges seem to have slipped from our modern dessert repertoire. The gelatine based blancmange is still with us to some degree, in the richer and more appealingly named Italian panna cotta which uses cream rather than milk, vanilla or other flavouring, and set with gelatine.