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Dessert

Flummery — Continued. German Flummery.

A sweet, thickened dessert made from wine, water, semolina, lemon peel, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Flummery — Continued. German Flummery.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the semolina base

  1. Boil the white wine and water with the salt.

  2. Gradually add the semolina while stirring for 8-10 minutes until thick.

Set and serve

  1. Remove from heat and mix in the lemon peel, castor sugar, and whipped egg whites until smooth.

  2. Rinse a large jelly mold with cold water and pour the mixture into it.

  3. Pack the mold in ice for 2 hours or until ready to serve.

  4. Dip the mold in tepid water to loosen the contents, wipe it clean, and turn the Flummery onto a dish.

  5. Mask with a puree of strawberries or strawberry jam.

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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Semolina + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together351 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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

Semolina
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the flummery its body.
Whites of 8 eggs
Whipped into the mixture to add lightness and help it set airy and light.
White wine
Provides the liquid base and a light acidity to the flummery.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the tartness of the wine.

The step that matters

Adding the semolina gradually while stirring. Semolina dropped in at once clumps and scorches, while adding it slowly and stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

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