The blancmange is perfect for serving at birthday or wedding parties, family gatherings, or entertaining parties. 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.

Before commercial gelatin was produced, Irish Moss and isinglass were used. Irish moss is a reddish purple moss found in the Atlantic Ocean coastline, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. And Isinglass is a form of collagen made from the dried fish bladders of fish. You can make one large blancmange instead of six small individual blancmanges if you prefer. Simply pour it into a mold or pan of your choice and let set. 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. 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 It is best to make it the day before it is wanted. Put into a bowl an ounce of isinglass (in warm weather you must take an ounce and a quarter). Pour on as much rose water as will cover the isinglass and set it on hot ashes to dissolve. Blanch one-fourth pound of shelled almonds, (half sweet and half bitter*) and beat them to a paste in a mortar, one at a time, moistening them all the while with a little rose water.

A clever marketing exercise

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 Take the milk preparation from the refrigerator. Add a few spoons of the whipped cream to the almond blancmange and mix with ahand whisk. Soak half a box of gelatin in a cupful of water for an hour. Boil two cups of milk, then add the gelatin, half a cup of grated chocolate rubbed smooth in a little milk, and one cup of sugar. Boil all together eight or ten minutes. Remove from the fire and when nearly cold, beat into this the whipped whites of three eggs flavored with vanilla. This should be served cold with custard made of the yolks, or sugar and cream. Set the molds in a cold place. Transfer the blancmange to apastry bagwith the cut tip and push it into glasses/small glass jars. Refrigerate for about 2 hours. 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.

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.In one teacup of water, boil until dissolved one ounce of isinglass or of patent gelatin (which is better). Stir it continually while boiling. Then squeeze the juice of a lemon upon a cup of fine, white sugar. Stir the sugar into a quart of rich cream and half a pint of Madeira or sherry wine. When it is well mixed, add the dissolved isinglass or gelatin, stir all well together and pour it into molds previously wet with cold water. Set the molds upon ice, let them stand until their contents are hard and cold, then serve with sugar and cream or custard sauce. Vintage Cakes: Timeless Recipes for Cupcakes, Flips, Rolls, Layer, Angel, Bundt, Chiffon, and Icebox Cakes for Today’s Sweet Tooth 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 If the blancmange is "lumpy" after adding it to the whipped cream, continue to mix gently until it becomes homogeneous.