Why it works: Cream and sugar 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
Sprinkle half the sugar over the strawberries and chop them moderately with a silver knife or crush them with a spoon.
Set the strawberries in a cool place for 1 hour.
Strain the strawberries through a clean linen cloth, expressing all the juice.
Stir the remaining sugar into the strawberry juice.
Whip the cream
Put the cream, egg whites, and strawberry juice into a small pitcher.
Chill the mixture in the ice chest.
When thoroughly cold, set the pitcher in a basin of ice water.
Whip the mixture with an egg beater until frothy.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Sweet cream
- Provides richness and fat, which give the whipped mixture body and a smooth texture.
- Egg whites
- Their proteins trap air when whipped, helping the mixture become light and frothy.
- Ripe strawberries
- Supply the main fruit flavour and juice that sweetens and colours the cream.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the strawberry juice and helps draw flavour out of the fruit.
The step that matters
Whip the mixture while thoroughly cold. Cold cream holds its fat in a firmer state, so it whips up into a stable foam. Warm mixtures whip poorly and collapse more easily.
“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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