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Dessert

Flummery

A chilled almond dessert made with bitter and sweet almonds, calf's feet stock, sugar, rose water, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Pour boiling water over the almonds to remove the skins.

  2. Place the kernels in cold water, then beat them in a mortar with a little rose-water.

Make the flummery

  1. Combine the beaten almonds with the calf's feet stock and sweeten with loaf sugar.

  2. Bring to a boil, then strain through muslin or gauze.

  3. Once slightly cooled, mix in the thick cream, stirring until thick and cold.

Set and serve

  1. Wet molds in cold water, pour in the flummery, and let stand for six hours before turning out.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

  5. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic almond aroma and flavour of the dish.
Sweet almonds
Add bulk and nutty flavour to the almond paste base.
Calf's feet stock
Supplies gelatine, which sets the flummery as it cools.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, creamier texture.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the mixture to taste.

The step that matters

Straining through muslin or gauze. Straining removes almond fragments and solids, so the set flummery is smooth rather than grainy. Letting it cool slightly before adding cream keeps the cream from curdling or separating in the hot liquid.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, 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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