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Dessert

Strawberry Frappe

A chilled strawberry dessert made with gelatin, milk, cream, sugar, egg white, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Frappe

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes, then dissolve it over hot water.

  2. In a bowl, mix the cream and sugar, then stir in the dissolved gelatin and beaten egg white.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once the mixture is cold, add the milk, chopped strawberries, and chopped nuts.

  2. Freeze the mixture and serve garnished with whole strawberries.

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. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 mixture so it holds a firm, smooth texture when frozen.
Egg white
Beaten into the mixture to add lightness and an airy texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen dessert a creamy mouthfeel.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens its texture when frozen.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the milk and fruit. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so adding the milk and strawberries to a mixture that is still warm can weaken setting and cause uneven texture. Letting it cool first keeps the set even and the fruit evenly distributed.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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

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