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Dessert

To Make Almond Flummery

A dessert made by boiling hartshorn with water, mixing with ground almonds, orange flower water, jelly, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Make Almond Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil hartshorn in spring water for 6-7 hours until half the water is consumed.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Make the flummery

  1. Beat the almonds finely with a little orange flower water.

  2. Mix a small amount of jelly with the almond mixture and some fine sugar.

  3. Strain it with the rest of the jelly, stirring until slightly warm.

  4. Pour into bowls or cups and garnish with small cut almonds.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hartshorn
Gelling agent that sets the spring water into a firm jelly as it cools.
Almonds
Provide the main flavour and a smooth, creamy body to the set dessert.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the nutty almond flavour.
Orange flower water
Adds a light floral aroma that complements the almonds.

The step that matters

Strain it with the rest of the jelly, stirring until slightly warm.. Hartshorn jelly begins to set as it cools, so the almond mixture must be kept just warm and fluid enough to blend in evenly. If it cools too much first, it can set in lumps and give a grainy texture instead of a smooth flummery.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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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