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Dessert

French Flummery

A sweet, thickened cream made with isinglass, rose water, and orange flower water, served with baked pears.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and pear work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

French Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flummery

  1. Boil 2 ounces of isinglass shavings in 1 quart of cream for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Sweeten with loaf sugar to taste, avoiding powdered sugar to prevent dust.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of rose water and some orange-flower water.

  4. Strain the mixture into a mold.

Serve

  1. Serve with baked pears around it.

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. Orange + peartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Rose + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange 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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the cream as it cools into a molded dessert.
Cream
Provides richness and fat, giving the set flummery a smooth, creamy texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the rich cream and floral waters.
Rose water
Contributes a floral aroma to the dessert.

The step that matters

Boiling the isinglass in the cream. Isinglass must be fully dissolved by boiling while stirred constantly, so it does not stick to the pan or form lumps. Undissolved isinglass will not set the cream evenly when it cools.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Pearthe original

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