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Dessert

Dutch Flummery

A sweet, lemon-flavored gelatin dessert made with lemon rind, sugar, water, isinglass, wine, egg yolks, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Dutch Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Pare the rind of the lemon very thin and infuse it in water with sugar over heat until dissolved and flavored.

  2. Add isinglass and stir until melted.

Thicken and set

  1. Stir in the strained juice of the lemons, wine, and egg yolks.

  2. Strain the mixture into a jug and place it in a saucepan of boiling water, stirring until thickened.

  3. Remove from water, allow to cool, and pour into molds.

  4. If using brandy, reduce the water by the same amount.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 protein that sets the mixture into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard-like mixture and add richness and a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the flummery and balances the sharp acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor that cuts through the sweetness.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavor, and contributes liquid to the mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk mixture over boiling water until thickened. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; if the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the yolks can curdle or scramble, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine, egg, brandy. 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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