How to Make Middle Eastern Desserts From a Basic Blancmange Recipe

 

  The humble, old-fashioned blancmange, which I always thought to be an English, or, due to its name; blancmange (eat white, or white dish), French dessert, has been enjoyed for centuries all over the Middle East under other names, muhallebi, mahalepi, malabi and kazan dibi.

 A dessert by any other name would taste as sweet!

 

 

These sweet, wobbly delights are basically made from milk and sugar thickened with corn flour (corn starch) or rice flour, and, particularly in the Middle East, slathered with rose water syrup, and topped with crunchy chopped pistachio nuts, in England however, where its inhabitants are known for being rather straight-laced and puritanical, it comes as is, straight up and unadorned.

 The origins of this simple sweet can be traced back to the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer mentions blancmange in his “Canterbury Tales” as far back as 1340 or 1344 to 1400;
(Written in Olde English).

“A cook they hadde with them for the nones (occasion) To boil the chickens and the marrow bones,
And powder merchant tart and galingale.
Well could he know a draught of London ale.
He could roast, and stew, and broil, and fry,
Make mortrewes, and well bake a pie.
But great harm was it, as it thoughte me,
That, on his shin a mormal ( open running ulcer) hadde he.
For blanc manger, that made he with the best.”

  Back in the day i.e. around 1200 to 1300, blancmange consisted of shredded chicken along with the milk and sugar and was considered a suitable dish for invalids, this goes for both European and Persian versions, all variations on a theme.

By the 1800s the chicken seems to have disappeared from the dish (I’m really pleased about that!).

 

 

Muhallebi

 

Muhallebi, or, as it’s known in Greece, mahallebi, not to be confused with mahlepi,an aromatic spice made from ground cherry kernels, which tastes similar to bitter almonds, was introduced to the Middle East by a Persian cook who made it for an Arab General, al-Muhallab bin Abi Sufra, who loved it so much, he gave the dish his name.

Muhallebi can be made from the basic blancmange recipe, just add  ground almonds or almond milk, vanilla, rose water, or ground mastic.

 

 

In Israel, malabi, or shekedim, is traditionally eaten in Sephardic homes to break the fast after Shavout, The Feast of Roses, on Yom Kippur, To keep within diet rules, it is made with almond milk instead of cow’s milk.

 

 

Kazan dibi, a Turkish dish, is basically blancmange with a caramelized bottom, the name means burnt pudding, bottom of the pan (Kazan), or burnt bottom (now that name would get the conversation flowing at a dinner party, “Who’s for burnt bottom?”) and it’s divine, rather like crème brulee or crème caramel.

 I didn’t have much of a story to tell you about kazan dibi, until perchance, my good friend Aris, on hearing I’d had a go at making this Turkish treat, told me the wonderful story about the origins of this Turkish dessert, it appears it was invented by mistake!

 Being rather difficult to regulate the heat over a wood fire, the cooks burnt a type of cream dish they were preparing, but all was not lost, they scraped off the burnt bottom and served up the cream only, but, being frugal, they weren’t about to throw away the burnt bottom, and so, they removed it from the pan, in rolls, drenched it in ground cinnamon, to disguise the burnt flavour and sold it, and what do you know?

It was a hit!

 Today in Turkey, kazan dibbi can often be found served in rolls as well as slabs.

 

 

Why my interest in all of this?

Well, MGG (My Greek God), has a fixation with blancmange, or, as it’s called in Greece, crema, I make a batch, at least twice a week, now, I’m as partial to a bit of blancmange as the next person, it brings back sweet, childhood memories, my grandmother made it all the time, in cute little aluminum molds, maybe she had the same fixation as MGG, but sometimes, you just want a change.

 

 

 MGG was happy enough, just sprinkling cinnamon over the top of his “crema”, he’s a creature of habit, but, as I don’t care for cinnamon, I decided to experiment, and so, for two days I boiled liters of milk, mixed sugar and corn flour (corn starch), and even produced some surprisingly good rose water syrup and most likely put on a couple kilos, I had to test all this you understand!

I can’t say I was optimistic about MGG preferring any of my new concoctions, he likes same old, same old but he surprised me, you’ll find out about that shortly.

 Here’s what I came up with, using the same basic recipe, and different flavours;
Lemon and almond, orange and vanilla, rose-water and good old plain vanilla flavoured.

 

 

The Middle Eastern recipes were usually half corn flour (Corn starch), and half rice flour, but some recipes did mention that rice flour can produce a gritty or grainy result, and anyway, I didn’t have any, so I just used my usual corn flour (corn starch) recipe.

 

Basic blancmange recipe

 Ingredients

 

1.5 litres milk

 100g Corn flour (corn starch)

 150 g Sugar

 One of the following flavourings:

 1 vanilla pod, (split, seeds scraped out), or 1 tsp vanilla essence.

 Or

 1 tsp almond essence plus the zest of 1 lemon

 Or

Vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla essence plus the zest of 1 orange

 Or

 Vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla essence plus 2 tsp rose water

 Or

 1 tsp ground mastika

 

Method

 

 Have your molds or containers at the ready for the blancmange, as it thickens quickly once boiled and maybe difficult to pour if you dally about and let it cool.

 You can use anything, small dishes, and glasses, even jam jars (You won’t be able to turn it out of a jam jar though).

 Use glass or ceramic, (tea cups are a good idea), as it’s difficult to turn the blancmange out of plastic containers, it sticks to plastic like nobody’s business, and looks a sorry sight indeed by the time you’ve prodded and poked at it with a knife trying to coax it onto a plate.

 Run the containers under the cold tap, before filling and your blancmange should just plop out easily, cover the top of mold with a plate and flip over, voila!

 

 

Right, let’s get started then, keep back about half a cup of the milk, put the remaining milk in a pan, along with whichever flavour you are using and bring to the boil.

 While the milk is heating up, mix corn flour and sugar together in bowl, and mix well with the half cup of milk, I have found the best way to prevent lumps forming, is to beat it with a wire whisk.

 Remove pan from heat as soon as the milk has reached boiling point and add the corn flour-sugar mixture, whisking well as you add it to the milk.

 Return pan to the heat, and stirring, or whisking continuously, bring the mixture to the boil again, remove pan from heat as soon as it begins to bubble.

 Pour mixture into molds, the easiest way is to pour the mixture into a heatproof jug and then fill the molds one by one.

 Leave the blancmange to cool, and then place in fridge for at least 5 hours, overnight is best.

 

 

That’s it, once set, and just before serving, sprinkle with whatever takes your fancy, ground cinnamon or nutmeg, grated chocolate, or pour over petimezi, fruit syrup, a spoonful of jam, or, of course, rose water syrup!

 

Rose Water Syrup

 

 

Sugar and water syrups are usually half sugar, half water and boiled for about 10 minutes; this produces thin syrup, usually used for pouring over cakes and pies, it’s too thin for pouring over blancmange, so, I used the usual syrup recipe and boiled for longer, about 20-25 minutes or so, until I got the consistency I wanted.

 

Ingredients

 

500 mls water

 250 g sugar

 2 tablespoons lemon juice

 2 teaspoons rose water

 A couple of drops red food colouring

 

Method

 

Put water, sugar, lemon juice and rose water in a pan and bring to the boil, turn down heat and simmer until required consistency, about 25 minutes, stir continuously once syrup begins to thicken.

 Remove from heat.

As this is clear syrup, I added a couple of drops of red food colouring, once I removed the syrup from the heat.

 This syrup can be poured over Greek yogurt, ice cream, Panna Cotta and yes, blancmange!

 

 

Kazan dibi

 Ingredients

 

 1.5 litres milk

100g Corn flour (corn starch)

 150 g Sugar

2 tsp rose water or 1 tsp vanilla essence (or vanilla pod).

 Butter to grease pan

 2 tablespoons sugar

 

Method

 

 Keep back about half a cup of the milk, put the remaining milk in a pan, along with rose water or the vanilla, whichever flavour you choice, and bring to the boil.

 While the milk is heating up, mix corn flour and sugar together in bowl, and mix well with the half cup of milk, I have found the best way to prevent lumps forming, is to beat it with a wire whisk.

 Remove pan from heat as soon as the milk has reached boiling point and add the corn flour-sugar mixture, whisking well as you add it to the milk.

 Return pan to the heat, and stirring, or whisking continuously, bring the mixture to the boil again, remove pan from heat as soon as it begins to bubble.

 Grease the bottom of a baking tin or heatproof dish (About 24 x 25 cm) and evenly sprinkle over the 2 tablespoons sugar.

 

 

Pour a thin layer of the cooked cream mixture (about half) evenly over the sugar, and spread to the edges of the pan.

 

 

Either using a kitchen blow torch, evenly burn the bottom of the pan, moving torch about until you can see  a dark brown colour at the bottom of the pan as the cream bubbles, or on top of the oven, gas or electric, moving the pan about until all the bottom is evenly “burnt”.
Be careful, things get extremely hot; be sure to hold the pan with oven gloves.

 

 

You need to be brave here, it has to be a very dark brown, not a golden caramel colour, as the sugar melts, it turns to syrup which runs to the edges of the pan, when this turns from clear to brown, it should be done.

You will smell burning, you will think “this is going to be inedible”, which is exactly what I thought, but I was wrong.

 Once you have burnt the bottom evenly, remove from heat, pour over the rest of the cream mixture, leave to cool and place in fridge for at least 5 hours, best is to leave it overnight.

Cut into squares and with a large spatula remove a piece, invert a plate over the top and flip it over, this is much easier than you think, to reveal the dark, caramelized underside.

 

 

All my efforts were delicious, I’m sure you will love them too, and what a wonderful dessert idea for a dinner party, something different, slightly exotic, something with a story, which, best of all, can be made the day before, even two or three days before, it keeps well in the fridge.

 Oh, you’re waiting to hear MGG’s thoughts, well, up until now; day in, day out, we had vanilla- flavoured blancmange but from now on, (and probably for evermore) we are to have the almond and lemon zest blancmange!

 

 

MGG was okay with all these new and exciting flavours, except for the rose water one, which he didn’t take to at all but the almond-lemon one he loved.

He still covers it in ground cinnamon though!

 

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