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Dessert

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

A chilled dessert made from strawberry pulp, sugar, vanilla, gelatin, water, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Press sufficient strawberries through a sieve to make 1 pint of pulp.

  2. In a bowl, combine the strawberry pulp, sugar, and vanilla extract.

Set the cream

  1. Melt the gelatin in 1 cup of water and stir it into the mixture until almost firm.

  2. Fold in enough whipped cream to fill a 3-pint mold.

  3. Set the mold on ice until firm.

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. Strawberry + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Strawberry pulp
Provides the main fruit flavor and most of the liquid in the cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the strawberries.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the set cream.

The step that matters

Stirring in the gelatin until almost firm. Gelatin must be fully dissolved in warm water before it goes in, or it forms lumps and uneven set. Folding in the cream only when the mixture is nearly set keeps the whipped cream from deflating and keeps the layers from separating.

“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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