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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

A chilled dessert made with cream, strawberries, jam, gelatin, lemon juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. If using fresh strawberries, sprinkle with caster sugar and let sit for 1 hour.

  2. Rub the jam through a sieve with a little milk.

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the gelatine in the water, then add sugar (if desired) and lemon juice.

  2. Pour the melted and cooled gelatine into the fruit juice.

  3. Whip the cream and gently stir it into the mixture.

Set and chill

  1. Pour into a wet mold and refrigerate until set.

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cream
Whipped cream adds air and richness, giving the set dessert a light, creamy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools in the refrigerator.
Jam
Adds concentrated fruit flavour and sweetness, plus body from the pectin-containing fruit.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, juice and acidity to the cream.

The step that matters

Cooling the melted gelatine before adding it. Gelatine that is still very hot can deflate the whipped cream and cause uneven setting. Letting it cool slightly before pouring it into the fruit juice keeps the mixture smooth and evenly set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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