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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 base

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water until covered.

  2. Pick the strawberries and place them in a bowl with the sugar.

  3. After 5–10 minutes, strain the mixture through a fine sieve and add the lemon juice.

  4. Dissolve the gelatin in a small saucepan over heat, then cool it.

  5. Strain the cooled gelatin into another saucepan.

  6. Mix the gelatin with the strawberry puree.

Make the mousse

  1. Surround the saucepan with ice and stir until it begins to freeze.

  2. Whip the cream until fluffy, then gently fold it into the strawberry mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Fill a cylinder mold (not tin) with the mixture and place it in a basin surrounded by ice.

  2. Cover the mold with a lid and ice, and let it set for about 2 hours.

  3. Prepare a large basin of hot water, dip the mold in it briefly, then invert it onto a dish.

  4. If the cream does not release easily, dip it again in hot water.

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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid strawberry mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and colour, and the fruit pulp that forms the body of the dish.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the strawberry mixture and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring over ice until it begins to freeze. Gelatin sets as it cools, so the mixture must thicken to a soft, spoonable state before the cream is folded in. If it sets too firm, it will not blend evenly with the whipped cream and will form lumps; if it stays too warm, the mould will not hold its shape.

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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