from Dinner with Mr Darcy by Pen Vogler
Flummery is a white jelly, which was set in elegant molds or as shapes in clear jelly. Its delicate, creamy taste goes particularly well with rhubarb, strawberries, and raspberries. A modern version would be to add the puréed fruit to the ingredients, taking away the same volume of water.- 1⁄2 cup/50g ground almonds
- 1 tsp natural rosewater (with no added alcohol)
- A drop of natural almond extract
- 11⁄4 cups/300ml milk
- 1 1⁄4 cups heavy (double) cream 1–2 tbsp superfine (caster) sugar 5 gelatin leaves
1) Put the gelatin in a bowl and cover with cold water; leave for 4–5 minutes
2) Pour the milk, almonds, and sugar into a saucepan and heat slowly until just below boiling.
3) Squeeze out the excess water from the gelatin leaves and add them to the almond milk. Simmer for a few minutes, keeping it below boiling point. Let it cool a little and strain it through cheesecloth, or a very fine sieve
4) Whip the cream until thick, and then fold it into the tepid mixture. Wet your molds (essential, to make it turn out), put the flummery in (keeping some back for the hen’s nest recipe below if you’d like) and leave to stand in the fridge overnight
5) To serve: If you don’t have a jelly mold with a removable lid, dip the mold briefly into boiling water before turning out the flummery
"To make Flummery Put one ounce of bitter and one of sweet almonds into a basin, pour over them some boiling water to make the skins come off, which is called blanching. Strip off the skins and throw the kernels into cold water. Then take them out and beat them in a marble mortar with a little rosewater to keep them from oiling. When they are beat, put them into a pint of calf’s foot stock, set it over the fire and sweeten it to your taste with loaf sugar. As soon as it boils strain it through a piece of muslin or gauze. When a little cold put it into a pint of thick cream and keep stirring it often till it grows thick and cold. Wet your moulds in cold water and pour in the flummery, let it stand five or six hours at least before you turn them out. If you make the flummery stiff and wet the moulds, it will turn out without putting it into warm water, for water takes off the figures of the mould and makes the flummery look dull."ELIZABETH RAFFALD,THE EXPERIENCED ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER, 1769