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Dessert

French Flummery

A sweetened cream dessert made with isinglass, orange juice, and sugar, served with baked pears.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and pear work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

French Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flummery

  1. Boil isinglass in cream for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Sweeten with loaf sugar and strained orange juice.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a mold.

Serve

  1. Serve with baked pears around it.

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. Orange + peartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Cream + peartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Isinglass
Sets the cream into a firm, wobbly gel as it cools.
Cream
Provides the rich body and fat that give the flummery its smooth texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the cream.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor to cut the richness.

The step that matters

Boil isinglass in cream while stirring constantly. Isinglass is a gelatin-like protein that must dissolve fully into the hot cream. Constant stirring keeps it from scorching on the base of the pan and sticking, and ensures an even set once cooled.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

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