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Dessert

Flummery of Wheat

A sweet, thickened milk dessert made with wheat, currants, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Flummery of Wheat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wheat

  1. Place the wheat in an earthen vessel and cover it with water.

  2. Simmer gently until it becomes jelly-like.

Make the flummery

  1. Add the fresh milk.

  2. Add the boiled currants.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with a little milk.

  4. Mix everything together.

  5. Heat over low heat, ensuring it does not boil.

  6. Sweeten with sugar.

  7. Season with nutmeg and cinnamon.

  8. Serve hot or cold.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together359 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat
Thickens into a jelly-like base that gives the flummery its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the milk as they gently set with heat.
Fresh milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy richness of the dish.
Currants
Add tart fruit flavor and small bursts of sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat over low heat, ensuring it does not boil. Egg yolks set gently at moderate heat but can curdle and turn grainy if boiled. Keeping the heat low lets the custard thicken smoothly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, milk, egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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