Skip to main content
Dessert

Spanish Flummery

A sweet almond custard dessert thickened with milk and isinglass, folded with whipped cream and set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Spanish Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond custard

  1. Finely pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the ground almonds with the egg yolks.

  3. Pour in the boiling milk and stir quickly over low heat until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir until slightly cool to prevent lumps.

Finish and set

  1. In another bowl, whisk the heavy cream to a light froth.

  2. Once the custard is cold, gently fold in the whipped cream.

  3. Add powdered sugar to taste and the dissolved isinglass mixed with minimal warm water.

  4. Mix everything lightly and pour into a mold when it begins to set.

  5. Refrigerate for about an hour until ready to serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and set, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Heavy cream
Whipped to a froth, it adds lightness and richness to the set dessert.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like setting agent that firms the mixture as it cools.
Sweet almonds
Ground into the custard, they supply the main nutty almond flavour and body.
Bitter almonds
Ground in small amount, they add a deeper, sharper almond aroma.

The step that matters

Remove from heat and stir until slightly cool. Egg yolks in hot milk can scramble and form lumps if left too hot. Stirring off the heat while the custard cools slightly keeps it smooth before the cream and isinglass are added.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, sugar. 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