Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Cream— No. I

A strawberry-flavored cream made with calf's feet extract, milk, jam, thick cream, sugar, and optional cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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— No. I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the Extract of Calves' Feet in water for twenty minutes, then drain.

  2. Melt the extract in a cup of hot milk.

  3. Wash the strawberry jam in milk and strain it.

Make the cream

  1. Whisk the thick cream with the sugar until fluffy.

  2. Mix all ingredients together and add cochineal if a deeper color is desired.

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. Milk + strawberry jamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Strawberry jam + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together291 recipes

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Extract of calves' feet
Gelatin-rich setting agent that firms the cream as it cools.
Thick cream
Provides richness and fat, giving the whipped cream a smooth, velvety texture.
Strawberry jam
Adds strawberry flavor and fruity aroma to the cream.
Fine sifted sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps it hold a stable, fluffy whipped texture.

The step that matters

Melt the extract in the hot milk. The extract must dissolve fully into the warm milk before mixing; undissolved gelatin leaves lumps and uneven setting, while overheating can weaken its gelling power.

Swap the strawberry jam

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.

More strawberry cream recipes

Tart 10Pie 7Tarts 6 See all 65 →

You might also like

Strawberry Ice CreamStrawberry Ice Cream122 recipesStrawberry SherbetStrawberry Sherbet48 recipesStrawberry Water IceStrawberry Water Ice24 recipesStrawberry FoamStrawberry Foam7 recipes