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Dessert

Spanish Flummery

A sweet almond custard dessert thickened with milk and cream, sweetened with powdered sugar and stabilized with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Finely pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the ground almonds with the egg yolks.

Make the custard

  1. Pour in the boiling milk and stir quickly over low heat until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat and stir until slightly cool to prevent lumps.

  3. In another bowl, whisk the heavy cream to a light froth.

  4. Once the custard is cold, gently fold in the whipped cream.

  5. Add powdered sugar to taste and the dissolved isinglass.

  6. Mix everything lightly and pour into a mold when it begins to set.

Chill and serve

  1. Refrigerate for about an hour until ready to serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set gently with the warm milk.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the flummery so it holds its shape.
Sweet and bitter almonds
Provide the nutty, aromatic flavor base of the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the milk into the almond and yolk mixture quickly over low heat. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat but can scramble if overheated or left still. Stirring constantly while pouring in the boiling milk keeps the custard smooth, and removing it to cool slightly before adding the cream prevents lumps.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, cream, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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