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Dessert

Fruit Loaf

A chilled raspberry loaf made with gelatin, powdered sugar, whipped cream, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Fruit Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in hot water and stir until cool.

  2. Add powdered sugar and a dash of salt.

  3. Pass the raspberries through a sieve to remove seeds.

Assemble and set

  1. Fold in the whipped cream and sliced almonds.

  2. Pour the mixture into a 2-quart ice cream brick mold.

  3. Let it harden on ice or outdoors in winter.

Serve

  1. To serve, dip the mold in hot water and invert onto a platter.

  2. Garnish with a pink rose spray and serve slices 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so the loaf holds its shape when turned out.
Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, tartness and colour to the loaf.
Cream
Whipped into the mixture to add lightness, richness and a softer texture.
Sliced almonds
Add a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft, creamy loaf.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the cooled liquid.

The step that matters

Let the gelatine cool before folding in the cream. Gelatine that is still hot can melt or deflate the whipped cream, while gelatine that has cooled and begun to thicken keeps the air in the cream and sets the loaf evenly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

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.

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