I am not a native English speaker, as you can probably tell by my clumsy and chaotic writing. So it is not surprising that the dish blancmange was something new to me. When I saw it in the Martha Lloyds recipe collection, it reminded me of our modern panna cotta recipe, only flavoured with almonds and set with issinglass. It intrigued me so I decided to find out more about it.

Blancmange can be found throughout history under various names and spellings, including but not limited to blanch mange, blancmanger, blamange, blomonge, cibus albus and manjar branco. It was a truly international dish, as the recipes for it can be found in many Medieval European cultures. The earliest known written recipe for blancmange has been found in an early 13th century Danish translation of an even earlier German manuscript. It can also be found in 1395 Le Viandier manuscript, the first French cookbook, and The Forme of Cury, an English manuscript written by Richard III master chef in 1390.

A recipe for blank maunger from The Forme of Cury (c.1420s version) — A recipe for blank maunger from *The Forme of Cury* (c.1420s version)

No matter which cookery books you look at, the recipes for blancmange are very similar, but not to the ones we are familiar with today. In the Medieval times blancmange was a dish for the rich as it used many expensive and imported ingredients of the time such as almonds, rice, saffron and even sugar. Early recipes also included meat, chicken or capon, or, during Lent, fish. Medieval cuisine had a very blurred line between sweet and savoury dishes and blancmange was no exception. It resembled a thick porridge made of almond milk boiled with rice or rice flour. It was lightly flavoured and sweetened and finally mixed with shredded fish, capon or chicken meat. It could also have been decorated with pomegranate seeds, fried almonds and flowers.

Unlike the name suggests, blancmange (meaning white food) wasn’t necessary always white. It often was coloured, however the main ingredients – almonds, rice, sugar and fish or meat – were white. Colour of the food mattered in Medieval medicine and humour theory and white was thought to be the most nutritious and healthiest.

John Notts cookbook The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary published in 1723 contains no less than 7 blancmange recipes of various styles — John Notts cookbook *The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary* published in 1723 contains no less than 7 blancmange recipes of various styles

Sometime in the late 16th / early 17th century blancmange started to change. Firstly, it shed it’s meat. Along with rice flour you could now set it with issinglass, caves foot jelly, eggs, breadcrumbs or hartshorn. You could use milk, cream or both, flavour it with different fruits, spices, rosewater or orange blossom water and even omit almonds. Essentially blancmange became a true blank canvas to flavour to ones hearts content. It could be served as a layer in ribbon jellies, in small individual glasses or as a large centre piece. During this time the moulds evolved into taller and more ornate ones with the assistance of the newly developing ceramics industry. In his book The Cooks and Confectioners from 1723, John Nott provided no less than 7 recipes for blancmange, including old fashioned ones with capon and fish. Though I am not sure how popular the latter were at that point. Many of these variations became a dish of there own right like the Spanish paps or Jaune Mange.

In Martha Lloyds time two main blancmange cooking methods appear in the contemporary cookbooks. First was clear blancmange which was made with calf’s foot jelly. Second were all the others blancmanges that were made with issinglass. Both type of almonds (sweet and bitter) were used along with milk, cream or both. Flavouring wise one combination that often appears is that of cinnamon, coriander seeds, lemon zest and bay leaves, though rose water is not long behind. There are many references of different coloured blancmanges, most popular being green. Green blancmange was made with spinach juice, using both types of almonds and brandy for flavouring and was set in a melon shaped mould.

In the Victorian times, with the assistance of industrial gelatin and newly discovered starches, the Europeans turned again to rice flour, along with arrowroot and cornstarch to set it. In the 19th century the food industry also made its mark on dessert and produced the pre-made blancmange powder that is still made today. With its artificial flavours and colours and quick and easy preparation, nowadays blancmange has became a shadow of its former self. Maybe it is time to change it?

Ingredients

Bitter almonds unlike our sweet almonds were just like name suggest, bitter. Nowadays however they aren’t easily accessible and in some places even illegal to sell. They are high in cyanide which obviously makes them a rather unhealthy choice to flavour your meals with. Luckily the flavour is rather easy to replicate by using almond extract. It is supposedly made to replicate the bitter almond flavour so I will be going to use that as a flavouring in combination of regular almond meal.

Issinglass however has been a bit of a headache. As I mentioned before nowadays it is mainly used as a finning agent to clarify beer and wine. In Australia you can get it, however it mostly comes in a liquid form with unspecified dilution and additives, which just wouldn’t do. After fruitlessly trying to contact few of the manufacturers of issinglass I came to accept that I would not be getting my hands on it. So I will be using plain gelatin from the shops. I will follow the advice on the packet as to the ratio between gelatin leaves and liquid to use for a moulded jelly. In my case 8 leaves to 500 ml. However if you dear reader know where I could get my little hands on it, I would much appreciate the tip.

Martha Lloyds Blanch Mange

335 grams almond meal
1 - 2 tsp almond extract (I used two)
710 ml cream
100 grams sugar
230 ml milk
16 leaves of gelatin

Heat the cream, sugar, milk, almonds and almond extract in a saucepan and let the sugar melt and flavours infuse. You should scald the cream not boil it. Set aside and let the temperature drop to around 60°C. Meanwhile soak the gelatin leaves in cold water. Once the cream has cooled, strain the mixture through a sieve and add the gelatin, the excess water squeezed out beforehand. Mix until the gelatin has melted.

To prepare the mould I like to apply the smallest coating possible of neutral oil on the inside of the mould and then put it in the refrigerator. Only when the cream mixture has cooled down to room temperature do I pour it in. This is just an extra step to ensure that the oil from the mould won’t mix in with the blancmange. Let it set overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day all you need to do is unmould it. In my limited experience the easiest way to convince the little bugger to come out is by running something thin and sharp around the edges and dipping the mould in hot water, all the while clutching your pearls and a glass of wine to calm the nerves.

As many recipes suggested I decorated blancmange with some edible flowers. I also had a bottle of passionfruit and mango sauce which I served along side. The end result was very tasty. The texture wasn’t as smooth and silky as say panna cotta, but liked it nonetheless. It reminded me of marzipan, but in a jelly form. If you want to try it as well, I highly recommend you to give it a go.

Sources

Books
Brears, Peter, Jellies & Their Moulds, Prospect Books, 2010
Davidson, Alan, The Oxford Companion of Food, Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 2014
Hickman, Peggy, A Jane Austen Household Book with Martha Lloyd’s Recipes, Readers Union, Group of Book Clubs, 1978
Ysewijn, Regula, Pride and Pudding, Murdoch Books, 2016

Papers
Allaire-Graham, Erin Sunshine, From Fast to Feast: Analyzing the Ubiquitous “White Dish” Called Blancmange, 2012

Websites
https://britishfoodhistory.com/2019/06/08/mediaeval-blanc-mange/ (article written on 8th June, 2019, accessed on 15th April, 2021)
https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/english/recipes/medieval-blancmange/ (article accessed on 15th April, 2021)
https://foodtimeline.org/foodpuddings.html#blancmange (article accessed on 15th April, 2021)
http://foodsubs.com/Nuts.html (article accessed on 15th April, 2021)
http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ms7links.html (article accessed on 15th April, 2021)
https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/blancmange-in-its-many-forms/ (article written on 12th June, 2014, accessed on 15th April)
http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ms7links.html (article accessed on 15th April)