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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

A chilled strawberry-flavored cream made with heavy cream, powdered sugar, lemon juice, strawberry jam, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Whisk the heavy cream until it thickens.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and lemon juice, and mix well.

Add the strawberry

  1. Mix the strawberry jam with a little cold water and strain it through a fine sieve.

  2. Combine the strained strawberry mixture with the cream mixture.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + strawberry jamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together291 recipes
  4. Cream + strawberry jamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together143 recipes
  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon 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

Heavy cream
Whipped into air and fat, it forms the light, thick body of the dessert.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into it without graininess.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Strawberry jam
Supplies concentrated strawberry flavour, sweetness and colour to the cream.

The step that matters

Whisk the heavy cream until it thickens. Cream thickens as its fat globules trap air. Stop when it holds its shape, because overwhipping causes it to curdle and turn grainy.

Swap the strawberry jam

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, lemon. 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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