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Dessert

Apple Flummery

A steamed apple dessert thickened with Irish moss and served chilled with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Irish moss and cream work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Apple Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit base

  1. Place apples in an enamelled pan, cover with water, and steam until soft.

  2. Strain and beat the fruit to a pulp.

Set the flummery

  1. Boil the strained liquid with Irish moss for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain again.

  3. Add the crushed fruit to the strained liquid.

  4. Simmer for 3 minutes.

  5. Turn the mixture into a chilled, wet mold.

  6. Let it stand until solid and well chilled.

  7. Serve with 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. Irish moss + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Apple + irish mosstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main fruit flavour and body, softened and pulped into the dessert.
Irish moss
Acts as a natural gelling agent, setting the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Cream
Adds richness and a cool, fatty contrast to the tart fruit when served.

The step that matters

Let it stand until solid and well chilled. Irish moss sets only as the mixture cools, so it must stand long enough to firm fully. Pouring into an unchilled or dry mold, or unmolding too early, can leave it soft and loose.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against irish moss, 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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