Grandma’s Passionfruit Flummery
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 lemon juice and strained passionfruit juice.
7 Pour into the serving bowls and chill until set, about 2 hours.
8 Serve topped with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and the pulp of half a passionfruit.
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29 comments on “Grandma’s Passionfruit Flummery”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Please Pass the Recipe 
Just read your Mum’s version and that’s the one my mother made. I might seek this one out- I hate playing with gelatine sheets, especially after reading about the contents, though I am sure the same stuff lurks in the lemon jelly crystals.
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Even agar agar sets too soft, sadly, don’t think effective vego gelatine exists.
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No- so true, unless making those small cute green Pandanas Indonesian sweets. I’ll do it with gelatine powder, in keeping with the 60s approach. There were so many flummeries in summer, made a nice changed from two fruits with iceccream ( and one red cherry in the can to hunt for)
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It looks lovely! Reading the description put me in mind of something we used to call Angel Delight which was very rich if made with evaporated milk. 🙂 🙂
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Thanks. My Mum made whipped jelly and evaporated milk desserts too although it didn’t really have a name. This is not as light, more like a mousse
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I was brought up on flummery as a kid in Australia; now I live in France and just fancied one this Easter so found your recipe. Have just made it to the whipping stage and re-read your instructions to see when to beat in the lemon juice but – no further mention of this ingredient after its listing in the ingredients … As the passionfruit available here is rather tart I don’t expect it will make a great deal of difference but just to satisfy my curiosity, when should I add it, please, for further reference?
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Hi Mary, thanks for pointing out the error in the method, I have amended the post. The lemon juice should be beaten into the inert jelly with the passionfruit juice. Have a happy Easter
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Hi, my Irish Mum used to make this as well but we never had a name for it, just jelly & condensed milk. Your recipe sounds great and I shall have a go – despite the high cost of passionfruit in my country.
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My mother used to make it but I have had two goes at it but it will not set as hers did not sure what I’m doing wrong I’m sure she put jelly in the mix so that is my next trick any comments please.
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Hi Ron, It’s so frustrating when a recipe doesn’t work, but this one should so I suspect your gelatine is of a different strength. Does it say on your package the amount required to set 600mls of liquid? That’s the water plus the pulp. Gelatine strength is an inexplicable anomoly that causes lots of angst. I hope this helps
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This sounds intriguing! Love discovering old fashioned dishes, thanks for sharing the recipe!
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I love gelatine desserts. I prefer the sheets to the powder form but couldn’t find any from the supermarkets here. Your flummery looks tempting!
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PS, stressed is an understatement,
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So that’s flummery. I’ve read about it in novels. What is ‘titanium’ gelatine? Strong stuff?
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Leaf gelatine comes in gold and titanium strength. Yes the titanium is the stronger of the two. Stephanie Alexander has a wonderful explanation in her Cook’s Companion about the different sorts of gelatine and how to use and substitute them.
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Sounds delicious! A perfect ending to a meal. A niggling in the back of my mind tells me that flummery is or was defined differently in Britain. Perhaps I need to do a bit more research into the culinary history of flummery!
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Oo, I’d love to know what you discover. My Grandma was from Suffolk so I just made the assumption it had an English proviniance.
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I can sense a forthcoming post!
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I’ll be very curious to see what you find. I just looked in my 1907 edition of Mrs Beeton’s Good Housekeeping. Not a flummery in sight surprisingly. 😉
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Yum, this looks and sounds amazing. You talking about Nan’s thing reminds me of it. I’m sure it graced the Sunday lunch table, along with grapes in jelly, and apricots poached & crumbled. Xxx
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Spot on Leah! Xx
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What a great word!! Flummery.. it look great too!
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Hey Mr Fitz, flummery is sweet, light and delicious, the name is quite apt!
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Like that!
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I remember the cheat’s flummery from my childhood- I loved it and we had it often during summer. I also crave for the real thing and wish my passionfruit vine would get itself together: all the flowers drop off during this heatwave.
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Sadly the gardens are quite stressed from the never ending heat. I have agapanthus curling up their toes! Hopefully it will cool down soon and your passionfruit will fruit bountifully…..
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yum, that looks utterly delicious
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