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 Mousse
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the strawberries
Wash and hull the strawberries, then sprinkle with sugar and let stand for 1 hour.
Pass the strawberries through a sieve.
Make the mousse
Soak the gelatin in cold water, then dissolve it in boiling water.
Stir the dissolved gelatin into the strawberry puree until it begins to thicken over a pan of ice.
Fold in the whipped cream gently.
Pour the mixture into a mold, cover, and pack in ice and salt.
Let it stand for 4 hours before serving.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the main flavour and the fruit puree that forms the body of the mousse.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the berries and draws out their juice during the standing time.
- Whipped cream
- Adds air and fat, giving the mousse its light, creamy texture.
- Gelatine
- Sets the puree so the mousse holds its shape when chilled.
The step that matters
Folding in the whipped cream gently. Whipped cream is full of trapped air. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, so the mousse turns dense and loses its lightness.
“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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