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Dessert

Apple Flummery

A dessert made from cooked apples, sugar, lemon rind, water, gelatin, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Apple Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Cook the apples with sugar, lemon rind, and water until tender.

  3. Drain the juice from the apples.

  4. Beat the apples to a pulp.

Make the set mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the soaked gelatine to the apple juice and stir over low heat until dissolved.

  3. Stir in the apple pulp.

  4. Stir in the cream.

  5. Keep stirring for 5 minutes without boiling.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mould wet with cold water and let it set.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Tart apples
Provide the bulk of the pulp and the tart flavour that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and balances their tartness.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a soft, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the set dessert.
Lemon rind
Adds a bright aroma that lifts the flavour of the apples.

The step that matters

Keep stirring for 5 minutes without boiling. Gentle stirring keeps the cream and apple pulp evenly blended. Boiling can cause the cream to separate and can weaken gelatine's ability to set, leaving a grainy or loose result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, 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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