Skip to main content
Dessert

Flummery

A chilled almond and jelly stock dessert thickened with cream and sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Blanch the almonds and soak them in cold water.

  2. Remove the almonds, then beat them in a marble mortar with a little rose-water to prevent oiling.

Make the flummery

  1. Combine the beaten almonds with the jelly stock and sweeten with loaf sugar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then strain it through muslin.

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

Mould and set

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

  2. If the flummery is stiff, wet the molds to release it without using warm water.

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. Sugar + rosetop 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
Give the characteristic almond flavour that carries through the dish.
Sweet almonds
Add bulk and a smooth, creamy body when beaten into a paste.
Jelly stock
Provides the liquid base that thickens and sets as it cools.
Thick cream
Adds richness, fat and a soft, smooth texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the almonds.

The step that matters

Mixing in the cream after slight cooling. If the mixture is still too hot, the cream can split or curdle. Stirring often while it cools keeps the cream evenly dispersed as the stock thickens and sets.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, rose. 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.

More flummery recipes

Rice 36Dutch 21Oatmeal 10Raspberry 9Blackberry 6French 5 See all 41 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes