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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

A chilled dessert of fresh strawberries folded into whipped cream and set with gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick over the strawberries and discard any that are not good.

  2. Remove the stems and place the strawberries in a basin.

  3. Sprinkle 3 oz of caster sugar over the strawberries to draw out the juice.

  4. Place a silk sieve over another basin and pass the fruit through it using a wooden spoon.

Make the gelatine base

  1. Soak ¾ oz of gelatin in 2 tablespoons of cold water in a small saucepan.

  2. Heat the saucepan and stir the gelatin until melted.

  3. Add 2 oz of caster sugar and the strained lemon juice to the saucepan.

  4. Pour this mixture through a strainer into the strawberries and mix well.

Finish and set

  1. Whip ½ pint of cream in a basin until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the whipped cream into the strawberry mixture.

  3. Scald a pint mold with hot water, then rinse with cold.

  4. Pour the strawberry cream into the mold and chill in ice until ready to serve.

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

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 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

Fresh strawberries
Provide the main flavour and the fruit body of the dessert.
Gelatine
Sets the strawberry mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and draws juice out of the strawberries.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the strawberries.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped cream into the strawberry mixture. Whipped cream is an foam of trapped air; stirring vigorously deflates it and makes the dessert heavy. Gentle folding keeps the air bubbles intact so the set cream stays light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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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