Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Flummery

A sweet milk and rice dessert thickened with bitter almonds, rose water, and isinglass, garnished with sweet almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flummery

  1. Boil the milk and ground rice together.

  2. Add blanched and pounded bitter almonds mixed with rose water.

  3. Sweeten to taste and stir until very thick.

  4. Pour into a mold and let it cool completely.

Serve

  1. Turn out the flummery and garnish with sweet almonds cut into straws.

  2. Serve with thick cream mixed with a little white wine and sugar.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the flummery its body and set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens into a soft, creamy set.
Bitter almonds
Adds a distinct nutty, aromatic flavour to the flummery.
Isinglass
Sets the mixture into a firm jelly as it cools.

The step that matters

Stir until very thick. Ground rice must be fully cooked and stirred while thickening so it does not stick, scorch or stay grainy. Stopping too early leaves a weak set, and overcooking can make it stiff and gluey.

“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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipes