TWD: Blanc-Manger

I always think about the ‘what if’s’. Like, what if I lost all my hair. Or what if I could live anywhere in the world.

I often leaf through Baking from My Home to Yours and think “What if I had my choice of TWD, which recipe would I choose?” The Blanc-Manger (pronounced blah-mahn-jay) topped my 'what if' list, mainly because of its creamy looking picture.

I was a bit disappointed this week, mainly in myself. I have been out of practice; I’ve been baking and making things I know how to do instead of broadening my skills. So it’s no wonder I made the simplest of mistakes. Dorie says in her book that this is a great recipe, especially for newlyweds learning to cook because it’s foolproof. Well, I am leaving the newlywed stage this August with my 2 year wedding anniversary…AND I bake…and this girl was totally fooled.

I have used gelatin many times before, and I never cease to have a problem. Even when heated, for some reason, I always find a gelatin clump somewhere. Ick. This time, I went too far in the cooling and the gelatin seized on me a bit. I know better. I should have put it back on the stove and put it back in the ice bath.

But it was 2:45. On Tuesday.

Yea…the day it needs to be posted. And I had to give myself cooling time, and get this photographed before dark (which didn’t happen due to a Costco run gone bad). So needless to say, I carried on, added the whipped cream and I had a mess on my hands. It was too late to turn back. So I folded in my beautiful, farm berries put it into my mini spring form pans and moved on with my day.

Thankfully I halved the recipe. But I’m just not a fan. Honestly, the gelatin portion was totally my fault and could be fixed and overlooked. But what throws me off is the texture of the ground almonds. I just don’t care for it. I usually leave any almond meal and the alike out of my recipes that are meant to be a smooth texture but in this case I really didn’t have much choice but to just go with it. I know many of the other bakers loved it so I figured; there is always a possibility of me turning over a new leaf. At least, that is what I hoped.

It’s such a shame because almonds ground or otherwise, are so good for you. I think I will just have to stick to whole almonds.

I will say that anyone that loves ground almonds would probably enjoy this. This recipe IS easy, despite my problems. I walked away from the chilling mixture for a few seconds too long. And I will say, hands on time, with assembly was less than 20 minutes. Just be sure to leave yourself 3 hours chilling time!

A special thank you to our host this week, Susan of Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy selected Raspberry and if you head over to her page you can get the recipe and see a much better photo of the finished product, and what it’s supposed to look like!

You can also check out what the other bakers were up to by checking out the TWD blogroll!

Next week’s TWD pick: Vanilla Ice Cream

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