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Dessert

Strawberry Charlotte

A chilled gelatin dessert made with strawberries, pineapple juice, eggs, and sugar, served with whipped cream and strawberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and strawberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 433 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Strawberry Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries

  1. Pick, wash, and cap the strawberries.

  2. Let them stand with 1 cup of sugar for 1 hour.

  3. Mash the strawberries.

  4. Strain to extract 1 cup of juice, allowing some pulp to pass through.

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in the strawberry juice.

  2. Heat the pineapple juice to boiling.

  3. Beat the eggs stiff over crushed ice.

  4. Add the remaining sugar and beat well.

  5. Gradually pour the hot pineapple juice mixture into the egg mixture.

  6. When the mixture is nearly set, pour it into a mold dipped in cold water.

Assemble and serve

  1. Line the mold with halved strawberries.

  2. Chill until ready to serve.

  3. Turn out onto a platter.

  4. Garnish with whole berries and whipped cream, and serve with strawberry sauce.

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. Pineapple + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Eggs
Beaten stiff to lighten the mixture and add structure and richness.
Strawberries
Provide the main flavour, colour, and moisture of the dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and draws flavour out of the strawberries.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot juice into the eggs. Pouring slowly while beating keeps the eggs from scrambling and lets the mixture cook gently and blend evenly.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Pineapplethe original
  4. Bananafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, strawberry, sauce. 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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