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Dessert

Strawberry Sponge

A chilled strawberry dessert made with gelatin, sugar, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup water for 2 hours.

  2. Mash the strawberries.

  3. Mix the mashed strawberries with ½ cup sugar.

  4. Rub the strawberries through a sieve.

Make the sponge base

  1. Boil the remaining sugar and 1 cup water gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the gelatine to the boiling syrup.

  3. Remove the mixture from heat immediately.

  4. Stir in the strawberries.

  5. Place the mixture in a pan of ice water.

Whip and set

  1. Beat the mixture for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the egg whites.

  3. Beat until the mixture begins to thicken.

  4. Pour the mixture into molds.

  5. Set aside to harden.

  6. Serve with sugar and cream.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour, colour and body of the sponge.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped air bubbles give the sponge its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Beat until the mixture begins to thicken. Gelatine starts to set as it cools, so the mixture can become too firm to pour into molds if beaten or chilled too long. Stop when it just begins to thicken, then mold it promptly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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