Skip to main content
Dessert

Maple Mousse

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, maple sugar, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gelatin and cream 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 ↓

Maple Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the mold in cold water.

Make the syrup and custard

  1. Combine 1 cup of cold water with the maple sugar, stir until dissolved, and cook until it reaches a thread-like consistency.

  2. Remove from heat and slowly add the gelatin, stirring well.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly.

  4. Slowly add half of the syrup to the beaten egg yolks, then combine with the remaining syrup.

  5. Beat the mixture with a hand mixer until cold.

Finish and chill

  1. Whip the cream and fold it into the mixture.

  2. Pour into the mold and pack in ice for 3 hours or refrigerate overnight.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated gelatin
Sets the mousse so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body, and help emulsify the creamy base.
Maple sugar
Sweetens the mousse and forms the syrup that the other ingredients are folded into.
Thick cream
Whipped to add air and a light, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatin and syrup to the egg yolks. If the syrup is too hot when combined with the beaten yolks, the eggs can scramble. Adding it slowly and letting the mixture cool slightly lets the yolks warm gently and blend smoothly.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes