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Dessert

Jellied Strawberries

A chilled dessert of strawberry juice, pulp, and fruit set in gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,206 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Jellied Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the soaked gelatine in boiling water.

  3. Add sugar and lemon juice to the gelatine mixture.

  4. Stir in the strawberry juice and mashed pulp.

Set and serve

  1. Set aside to cool until it begins to set.

  2. Gently fold in the halved strawberries.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and chill until firm.

  4. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Strawberry + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Strawberry juice and pulp
Provides the main strawberry flavour and colour, and body to the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.
Halved strawberries
Add fresh fruit texture and pieces suspended within the set jelly.

The step that matters

Let the gelatine mixture cool until it just begins to set before folding in the strawberries. If the mixture is still very hot, the halved strawberries will sink or float unevenly and may soften. If it sets fully first, the fruit cannot be folded in evenly.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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