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Dessert

Bavarois Aux Paises

A chilled strawberry gelatin dessert made with strawberry pulp, powdered sugar, gelatin, water, and whipped cream.

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

Bavarois Aux Paises

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Press strawberries through a sieve to obtain 1 pint of pulp.

  2. Mix the strawberry pulp with 10 ounces of powdered sugar and 1½ ounces of clarified gelatin dissolved in 1 cup of water.

  3. Stir the mixture on ice until it begins to congeal.

Set in a mold

  1. Add enough whipped cream to fill a 3‑pint mold.

  2. Imbed the mold in ice and cool thoroughly.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 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. Strawberry + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

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

  5. Strawberry + gelatintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberry pulp
Provides the main strawberry flavour and the bulk of the mousse-like body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens the set, balancing the tartness of the fruit.
Clarified gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, giving a light, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stir on ice until it begins to congeal. Gelatin sets as it cools, so the mixture must thicken to a soft, lightly set state before the cream is folded in. Overchilling can make it set lumpy or too firm, while stopping too early leaves it unable to hold the cream's air and shape.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberrythe original
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin, cream. 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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