An 18th Century Dessert: First Assemble a Half-Dozen Cooks

Clarissa Dillon on the great age of English puddings

OK, amateur cooks try this recipe – if you dare.

It’s called “hartshorn flummery” from a book of colonial American recipes collected by local historian Clarissa F. Dillon, an expert on 18th century cooking and gardening.

First, definitions: 
“hartshorn” is shavings of a deer antler used like bones to create a gelatin and “flummery” is a sweet jelly-like or custardy dessert.

Only wealthy colonists with slaves or servants would even think of making this dessert. In an era without electric mixers, consider this instruction: “beat it for an hour and a half.”

So here’s the recipe:

Boil half a pound of shavings of hartshorn in three pints of water, till it comes to a pint then strain it through a sieve into a basin, then set it by to cool. Then set it over the fire. Let it just melt. And put it to half a pint of of thick cream, scalded and grown cold again. (add) a quarter of a pint of of white wine and two spoonfuls of orange-flower water. Sweeten it with sugar, and beat it for an hour and a half or it will not mix well, nor look well. Dip your cups in water before you put in your flummery, or else it will not turn out well. It is best when it stands a day or two before you turn it out. When you serve it up turn it out of the cups and stick blanch’d almonds cut in long narrow bits on the top. You may eat them either with wine or cream.