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Dessert

Fruit Mousse

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, fruit juice, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Prepare your chosen fruit juice and sweeten it to taste.

  3. Add the boiling water to the gelatine; stir until dissolved.

Make the mousse

  1. Mix in the fruit juice and strain the mixture.

  2. Set the mixture in a pan of ice and stir occasionally.

  3. Whip the cream until soft peaks form.

  4. When the fruit mixture begins to thicken, gently fold in the whipped cream.

  5. Pour the mixture into a mold and pack it in ice and salt for 3 hours.

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. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  3. Orange + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable mousse structure.
Cream
Whipped into the mixture to add lightness, richness and a soft texture.
Fruit juice
Provides the main flavour and sweetness of the mousse.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream as the fruit mixture begins to thicken. If the fruit mixture is too liquid, the cream will deflate and not hold air; if it has set too firmly, it will not blend evenly. Folding gently while it is just thickening keeps the airy texture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe 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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