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 Mousse
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the strawberries
Wash, hull, and halve the strawberries, then sprinkle with sugar and let stand for 1 hour.
Make the mousse
Soften the gelatin in cold water for 15 minutes, then dissolve it in hot water.
Mash the strawberries and strain through a fine sieve, then add the dissolved gelatin.
Set the mixture in a pan of ice water and stir until it thickens.
Fold in the whipped cream and pack the mixture in ice and salt for 5 hours.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the main flavour and fruit body of the mousse.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the strawberries and draws out their juice as it stands.
- Gelatine
- Sets the strained strawberry mixture so it holds its shape.
- Whipped cream
- Adds air and richness, giving the mousse its light, creamy texture.
The step that matters
Set the mixture in ice water until it thickens. Gelatine only sets when the mixture is cold enough, so stirring over ice water gives it body before the cream is folded in. If it is left too long it can stiffen unevenly, and if it is not cold enough the gelatine will not set properly and the mousse may stay runny.
“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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