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

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Sprinkle the blancmange with toasted flaked almonds, shredded coconut, fresh or toasted coconut shaving, white chocolate shavings, or cranberries and raisins mixture. 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.

Storage– Blancmange will last for around 2-3 days in the fridge. You can store separately from the coulis to stop it staining the white blancmange if you like. Keep the blancmange covered to preserve the flavour and stop the top from drying out. Sugar– Regular white sugar is fine, sub with brown sugar, coconut sugar or honey if you prefer. We used white sugar in the blanc manger and raw sugar in the coulis for a richer berry flavour. Transfer the blancmange to apastry bagwith the cut tip and push it into glasses/small glass jars. Refrigerate for about 2 hours.Blancmange may be colored green by mixing a little juice of spinach with the cream. Cochineal* which has been infused in a little brandy for half an hour will color it red and saffron will give it a bright yellow tinge. 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

Vintage Cakes: Timeless Recipes for Cupcakes, Flips, Rolls, Layer, Angel, Bundt, Chiffon, and Icebox Cakes for Today’s Sweet ToothTake a teacup of arrow root, put it into a large bowl, and dissolve it in a little cold water. When it is melted, pour off the water, and let the arrow root remain undisturbed. Boil half a pint of unskimmed milk, made very sweet with white sugar, add a beaten nutmeg, and eight or nine blades of mace, mixed with the juice and grated peel of a lemon. When it has boiled long enough to be highly flavored, strain it into a pint and a half of very rich milk or cream, and add a quarter of a pound of sugar. Boil the whole for ten minutes, then strain it, boiling hot, over the arrow root. Stir it well and frequently till cold, then put it into molds and let it set to congeal.

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. The oldest recipe that can be found is written in Danish, which may have been translated from a German cookbook. 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. Transfer the blancmange to a pastry bag with the cut tip and push it into glasses/small glass jars. Refrigerate for about 2 hours. This seemingly fancy dessert is simply delicious and simply easy to make! Here is how you make blancmange:To make red fruit coulis,mix the fruits and sugar in afood processor, except a few for the decoration (photo 1). Serve with the fruit in the teacups or carefully unmold the blancmange onto plates by dipping the cup in hot water and then running a thin knife, carefully, around the rim. You can store any leftover blancmange in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Be sure to cover it well! Make More Fine Desserts

And Nina’s pink blancmange? Fruit was added to the isinglass blancmanges in the C19th, and the Rouse’s copy of Warne’s Model Cookery features strawberry blancmange, but as Eliza Acton points out – a strawberry or pink blancmange is, of course, an argument in terms, as it is not white. She suggests it should instead be called a ‘moulded strawberry cream’ or a bavarois‘Bavarian cream’ such as we might make these days, fruit puree and cream set with gelatine. Putting it to the test Stew nice, fresh fruit (cherries, raspberries, and strawberries being the best). Strain off the juice and sweeten to taste. Place it over the fire in a double kettle until it boils. While boiling, stir in cornstarch wet with a little cold water, allowing two tablespoons of cornstarch to each pint of juice. Continue stirring until sufficiently cooked, then pour into molds wet in cold water and set away to cool. Serve with cream and sugar. 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 alchemyUse a Whisk– Use a whisk instead of a spoon to stir the blancmange as this will reduce the risk of lumps. This also works for other milk-based puddings, custards or white sauces like bechamel. Make sure to mix a little whipped cream with the main preparation before putting it in the whipped cream to incorporate well.