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Dessert

Raspberry Sponge

A gelatin-based dessert made with raspberry juice, cream, milk, 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: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Raspberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine and mix it with the raspberry juice.

  3. Add the cream, milk, lemon juice, and sugar to the mixture.

  4. Whisk the mixture in one direction until it thickens and resembles sponge.

  5. Pour the mixture into a damp mold and refrigerate until stiff.

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. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Raspberry + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its light, airy shape when chilled.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sponge a softer, creamier texture.
Raspberry juice
Provides the main flavour and colour of the sponge.
Milk
Adds moisture and mildness, softening the set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavour.

The step that matters

Whisking the mixture in one direction. Whisking steadily in one direction traps air into the thickening mixture, which gives the sponge its light texture. Stopping or changing direction can collapse the foam and make it dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, cream, milk, 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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