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Dessert

Cherry Bavarian Cream

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and cherries soaked in sherry or Maraschino.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cherry Bavarian Cream

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.

Make the cream

  1. Soak gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Set gelatin over hot water until melted.

  3. Whip cream until solid.

  4. Gradually add powdered sugar and melted gelatin.

  5. Stir in vanilla extract and cherries as mixture thickens.

Mold and serve

  1. Mold mixture in individual forms.

  2. Serve with pink frosted cakes.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 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

Heavy cream
Whipped into a solid foam that gives the dessert its light, airy body.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when molded.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into the whipped mixture.
Cherries
Add fruit flavor and color to the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the melted gelatin to the cream. Gelatin must be melted but not hot when it is added, and it should be folded in gradually. If it is too hot or added all at once, it can deflate the whipped cream or form stringy clumps instead of a smooth, evenly set mixture.

“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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