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Dessert

Raspberry Flummery

A light dessert made from raspberries, tapioca, sugar, and egg whites, topped with whipped cream and nuts.

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 ↓

Raspberry Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the raspberry tapioca

  1. In a pot, combine 1 cup of red raspberries and 1 cup of water over medium heat.

  2. Once hot, stir in ½ cup of tapioca and cover the pot.

  3. Cook until the tapioca is transparent.

  4. Add ½ cup of sugar and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Serve

  1. Serve topped with whipped cream and nuts.

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. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Tapioca
Thickens the raspberry liquid as it cooks, giving the flummery its soft, set body.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to add lightness and an airy, foamy texture.
Red raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and tartness, and colour the dish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tart raspberries.

The step that matters

Cook until the tapioca is transparent. Tapioca starch must be fully cooked to swell and turn clear; undercooked pieces stay opaque and chalky, and the mixture will not thicken properly.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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