Flummery recipe evaporated milk

Flummery is a word you rarely hear today. It can be used in two contexts, to describe meaningless nonsense or an old style light mousse like dessert.

My Mum often made flummery when I was a child, using a packet of sweetened jelly crystals dissolved in half the prescribed water, almost set, then beaten into a can of chilled evaporated milk.

Many a time us kids were roped in to take a turn with the manual rotary beaters to relieve Mum’s aching arms, all for the sake of dessert. Mum never referred to her jelly whip as flummery though, she dubbed it “thing” preceded by the jelly flavour. Lemon thing was my favourite.

Mum’s choice of name was to avoid confusion with the delicious Passionfruit Flummery her mother, my Grandma, made from scratch, a soft marshmallowy mousse sharply flavoured with fresh passionfruit pulp. Flummery was a summertime favourite when the passionfruit vine that rambled over the tumbledown decommissioned chook shed in the backyard was heavy with ripe purple fruit. We never tired of the exotic flavour and in the time before cavernous kitchen deep freezers, all manner of ideas were used to preserve the delicious pulp for later use. I recall one method involved crushed aspirin. Strangely it did prevent fermentation.

No lactose, no fat, no gluten, low fructose, guilt free luscious dessert!

Makes 6 individual serves

2 cups cold water
1 tablespoon corn flour
3 sheets titanium strength gelatine
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
12 passionfruits

1 Scoop the pulp from 6 of the passionfruits and strain out the seeds.
2 Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water until soft.
3 In a small pan combine the flour, sugar and water. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring continuously.
4 Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the softened gelatine sheets. Chill the mixture until it’s just beginning to set.
5 Prepare the serving bowls by scooping the pulp of 1/2 a passionfruit into the base of each.
6 Using a whisk, whip the jelly until light and fluffy, then beat in the strained passionfruit juice.
7 Pour into the serving bowls and chill until set, about 2 hours.