Skip to main content
Dessert

Blackberry Sponge

A chilled gelatin dessert made with blackberry juice, gelatin, sugar, lemon juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Blackberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice and gelatine

  1. Strain the blackberries to obtain the juice.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in warm water.

Make the syrup and mixture

  1. Make a syrup by combining sugar and water in a saucepan over heat until dissolved.

  2. Add the dissolved gelatine, lemon juice, and berry juice to the syrup.

  3. Place the mixture in a bowl set over cold water and beat for five minutes.

  4. Add the egg whites and continue to beat until the mixture is light and begins to thicken.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into a 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a light, sliceable structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to create a light, airy foam texture.
Blackberries
Provide the juice that gives the sponge its flavour and colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the tartness of the fruit and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Beating over cold water. Beating the warm gelatine mixture over cold water cools it gradually so it thickens to a foam. If it sets too quickly, the sponge loses volume; if it stays warm, the gelatine will not set firmly enough when chilled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes