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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries

  1. Remove the stalks from the strawberries.

  2. Place the strawberries in a sieve.

  3. Sprinkle 1½ ounces of sugar over them.

  4. Pass the strawberries through the sieve.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine the gelatine with 2 tablespoons of cold water, the remaining sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. Melt the gelatine mixture.

  3. Strain the melted mixture into the strawberries.

  4. Add the whipped cream and stir gently.

  5. Pour the mixture into a pint mold.

  6. Refrigerate until set.

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. Cream + lemontop 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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and fruit body of the cream.
French gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the fruit and dissolves into the mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Melting the gelatine mixture. Gelatine must be fully dissolved but not boiled, since overheating weakens its setting power. Undissolved granules leave a grainy, weak set.

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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