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Dessert

Solomon's Temple in Flummery

A molded flummery dessert shaped like Solomon's Temple, colored pink, chocolate, and white, decorated with flowers and rock candy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Solomon's Temple in Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the colors

  1. Divide the stiff flummery into three parts.

  2. Color one part pink with cochineal.

  3. Steep the colored part in French brandy.

  4. Scrape the chocolate finely. Dissolve the chocolate in strong coffee.

  5. Mix the dissolved chocolate with another part of the flummery to make a light stone color.

  6. Leave the last part white.

Fill the mold

  1. Wet the temple mold.

  2. Place the wet mold in a pot to stand evenly.

  3. Fill the top of the mold with red flummery for the steps.

  4. Fill the four points of the mold with white flummery.

  5. Fill the center with chocolate flummery.

  6. Let the center stand overnight.

Turn out and serve

  1. Loosen the flummery gently with a pin without dipping the mold in warm water.

  2. Once turned out, stick a small sprig of flowers at the top of each point for decoration.

  3. Surround the flummery with rock candy sweetmeats.

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. Chocolate + coffeetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Brandy + chocolatetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Brandy + coffeetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together213 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

Flummery
Forms the set body of the temple, giving it a firm, sliceable structure when chilled.
Cochineal
Provides the pink color of the steps through natural red pigment.
French brandy
Adds a sharp alcoholic aroma and flavor to the colored flummery.
Chocolate
Adds a cocoa flavor and, mixed with coffee, the light stone color of the center.
Strong coffee
Dissolves the chocolate and adds bitter depth and aroma to the stone-colored flummery.

The step that matters

Loosen the flummery gently with a pin without dipping the mold in warm water. Warm water can melt the surface of a set gelatin-based flummery, softening its edges and blurring the shape of the temple as it is turned out. Gentle loosening keeps the mold's detail intact.

“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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