Tuesday 2 September 2014

Chocolate Blancmange

Remember the days of the old schoolyard?  as the song goes.  We had to do Home Ec. as it was called back then- i.e.-mainly cooking and a bit of sewing.  And we used to make those wonderful old stalwarts like Irish Stew, and scones, and tea cakes and of course blancmange.   Oh crumbs!  I hated it.  The only flavouring was a teaspoon of vanilla essence (no extract or beans in them thar days), and it was generally a bit lumpy and glutinous.   But of course adding chocolate improves most anything.   I was watching a bit of daytime TV last week and saw an episode of Alive and Cooking with James Reason. (I used to love him on the ABC- that ponytail and that accent).  The ponytail has long gone, but the accent is still amazing with those flat as a pancake vowels.  Anyways, back to blancmange.  He made a chocolate version, so I thought Right I will give that a go, so this week I have.  And it is quite delicious!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tbs cornflour
1 tsp Dutch cocoa or raw cacao
600mls milk
100g dark chocolate- grated or chopped finely
1 tbs caster sugar- or try coconut sugar

Method:

Blend a few tablespoons of the milk with the cornflour and cocoa till you have a nice slurry (thin and lumpless) -set aside
Place the rest of the milk, the chocolate and the sugar into a medium saucepan
Grab a whisk and heat up the mixture gently, whisking all the while to prevent lumps (the scourge of any blancmange)
When it is close to boiling, throw in your cornflour slurry and keep whisking
Give it a few minutes to cook out the flour and thicken slightly
Turn it off and leave to cool down for about 20 minutes
Pour it into moulds or cups or one big bowl if you feel inclined
Refrigerate for several hours
Serve with whipped cream and Dutch chocolate sprinkles on top



making the slurry; and chopping the chocolate

I forgot to add the cocoa to my slurry!

starting to thicken after the slurry added

looking very pretty in the little cups


File:Eight girls and teacher in a cooking class in a Washington, D.C., high school.png
(stock image-photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston 1899)


14 comments:

  1. Growing up this was a family favourite and one that my mother used to make at a drop of a hat - but just with ordinary cocoa powder - we didn't actually have dessert that much so we all loved this:) Haven't had it for ages.

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    1. My mum didn't make dessert often either. She did make a great cheesecake tho.

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  2. This looks a million miles away from home economic blancmange (yep, we did them too!) - and I know I'd like it a lot more :)

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    1. hi kari
      yes the real chocolate gives it a lovely taste!

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  3. I love all your pretty cups. I did Home Ec but it was called Home Science in my day. The chocolate blacmange looks like a very yummy dessert xx

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    1. hi charly louie
      thanks. our potter friend made most of the cups. it is an amazingly yum dessert considering so few ingredients.

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  4. I never took home ec in high school. It wasn't the done thing if you were planning to go to university. What shortsightedness. Even if I had gone, we would never have made something like this. Only good old American fare in our school. :)

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    1. hi maureen
      we had no choice about it- all girls had to do Home Ec(onomics)! I was such a hopeless sewer- it took me a year to make a simple apron:)

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  5. We made such different things in our Home Ec class. They were of course quite grotesque but nevertheless different! :P

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    1. amazing when i think back on the stuff we cooked in class. really old-fashioned, really English, really working class food. I just mean that in the sense of not costing a lot, and being thrifty with ingredients.

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  6. I hated Home Ec! However I love re-working old skool classics in the kitchen like this...no issues here :)

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    1. I quite liked Home Ec, as I have always liked cooking and we got to take home some food for the family which was not a bad thing:) This is rather nice with the real chocolate added.

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  7. Mmm, this looks good :) Not something I have ever attempted... Love how you have presented them in the gorgeous cups x

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    Replies
    1. thanks sara. they did look pretty. and the real chocolate made all the diff! :)

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