Blancmange is either ignored or despised: here’s how to make one that’s neither slimy nor bland

Blancmange. Poor, maligned blancmange. The slimy, over-set staple of children’s birthday parties and school dinners, destined to be pushed around a plate and loathed for life. Blancmange has become shorthand for an age of blandness: the dessert equivalent of Chris de Burgh. Even its name sounds heavy on the English tongue.

But we do the blancmange a grave disservice. It is, after all, essentially a panna cotta. Shouldn’t a milk jelly by any other name taste as sweet? It is slightly lighter than its Italian counterpart, yes, but that’s all to its credit.

So why the bad reputation? The culprit, I think, is packet blancmange. No amount of careful preparation can mask the cornflour. In theory, English blancmange is set with cornflour and French with gelatine. But we’ve used all kinds of setting agents, from boiled chicken to ground almonds (there’s been plenty of time to experiment: this dish is name-checked in the Canter-bury Tales). Using gelatine prevents the dreaded cornflour sliminess; instead, the blancmange melts slowly in the mouth, thanks to its near body-temperature melting point.

These days, talk of blancmange elicits blank faces; a whole generation have missed out. I didn’t taste my first until 2009. It was the day before my 22nd birthday and I’d just moved to London. We sat on rickety chairs watching a TV that had seen better days. My flatmate darted up and down tending to a steaming pot on the stove. I didn’t think much about it until the next morning, when, on the kitchen table, I found a vase of roses, and a gently swaying work of art: an ivory jelly infused with saffron and rose. If this was the beginning of being a grown-up, it was as delicious as it was surprising.

Because here’s the thing: blancmange, despite appearances, is terribly grown-up. It never really belonged at children’s parties.