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Dessert

Strawberry Gelatine

A layered strawberry gelatin dessert with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Strawberry Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in the cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved.

  3. Add the sugar and the juice from the lemons.

  4. Strain the mixture into a measuring cup and add enough cold water to make 1½ pints.

Layer the mould

  1. Wet a tin mould with cold water.

  2. Place a small jam jar in the center of the mould, weighted down.

  3. Pour a fourth of the gelatine mixture into the mould and set it on ice to thicken.

  4. Once the jelly sets, add a layer of stemmed strawberries, then pour in more gelatine mixture.

  5. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

Unmould and serve

  1. Add hot water to the jam jar to release the jelly from the sides.

  2. Set the mould in hot water briefly to free the sides.

  3. Turn the mould out onto a serving dish.

  4. Sweeten the cream.

  5. Whip the cream.

  6. Fill the hollow center made by the jar with the whipped 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when unmoulded.
Strawberries
Add fruit flavour and colour to each layer of the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly to balance the tartness of the lemon.
Lemons
Their juice adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the jelly.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture as a whipped filling.

The step that matters

Let each layer set before adding the strawberries. Gelatine only firms once it cools, so the fruit needs a set layer to rest on. If the layer is still liquid, the strawberries sink or float and the layers blur together.

Swap the lemon

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

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