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Dessert

To Make Flummery

A dessert made from almonds, calf's‑foot stock, sugar, cream, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

To Make Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them to remove the skins.

  2. Strip off the skins and place the kernels in cold water.

  3. Beat the kernels in a mortar with a little rose-water to prevent oiling.

Make the flummery

  1. Combine the beaten almonds with the calf's-foot stock in a pot and sweeten with loaf sugar.

  2. Bring to a boil and strain through muslin or gauze.

  3. Once slightly cooled, mix in the thick cream while stirring frequently until it thickens and cools.

Set and unmold

  1. Wet your molds with cold water and pour in the flummery.

  2. Let it stand for at least 5 to 6 hours before unmolding.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and the body of the almond base.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper, more aromatic almond flavour to the base.
Calf's-foot stock
Its gelatine sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the set dessert.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the almond flavour.

The step that matters

Beating the kernels with rose-water. Adding a little rose-water while beating keeps the almond fats from separating into oil, which would make the finished flummery greasy and grainy.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, rose. 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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