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Dessert

Cheese Mousse

A chilled dessert made from whipped cream, gelatin, lemon juice, grated cheese, served with mayonnaise on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cheese Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mousse

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 2 tablespoons of water.

  2. Whip the cream until very stiff.

  3. In a bowl, combine the whipped cream with the dissolved gelatin.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice, then gradually add the grated cheese.

  5. Set aside to congeal.

Serve

  1. Once hardened, serve with mayonnaise on lettuce leaves.

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. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Gelatin + lettucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whipped into foam that gives the mousse its light, airy body.
Granulated gelatin
Sets the dissolved mixture so the mousse holds its shape when chilled.
New york cheese
Adds rich cheese flavor and body to the set mousse.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the cheese and cream.

The step that matters

Combining the dissolved gelatin with the whipped cream. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and liquid when added, then mixed in promptly. If it cools or clumps, it forms lumps or streaks instead of an even set, and over-stirring can deflate the whipped cream.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, cheese, gelatin, lettuce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cheese, gelatin, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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