Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Solid

A chilled strawberry dessert made with isinglass, cream, and lemon juice.

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

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Solid

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin base

  1. Dissolve the isinglass by boiling it in the water.

  2. Press the strawberries through a sieve.

  3. Add the lemon juice and sugar to the strawberries.

Combine and set

  1. Stir in the cream and the cooled dissolved isinglass. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into a damp earthenware mold.

  3. Refrigerate until it is stiff and ready to serve.

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 + creamtop 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. Lemon + creamtop 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

Isinglass
Sets the mixture into a firm, wobbly gel as it cools.
Strawberries
Provide the main flavour, colour and fruity body of the dessert.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, smooth texture to the set gelatin.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the strawberries.

The step that matters

Stir in the cooled dissolved isinglass. If the isinglass is still hot when added to the cream, it can thin the mixture and weaken the set. Cooling it slightly first helps it distribute evenly and set firmly in the cold.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

More strawberry gelatin recipes

Dessert 5 See all 23 →

You might also like

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