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Dessert

Blackberry Cream

A chilled dessert made with blackberries, apples, gelatin, sugar, and whipped cream.

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

Blackberry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Cook the apples with the blackberries until soft.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve and sweeten well.

Combine and set

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the water and add it to the fruit pulp.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff.

  3. Once the fruit pulp is cold, fold it into the whipped cream.

  4. Pour the mixture into a wet mold when it begins to 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Cream + appletop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Blackberries
Provide the main flavour and colour of the cream.
Cream
Whipped to stiff foam, it gives the dessert its light, airy texture.
Apples
Cooked down to pulp, they add body and natural pectin to help the mixture hold shape.
Gelatine
Dissolved and set as it cools, it firms the mousse so it holds its shape when unmoulded.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit pulp, balancing the tartness of the blackberries and apples.

The step that matters

Fold the cold pulp into the cream. If the fruit pulp is still warm or the gelatine has begun to set too far, it will deflate the whipped cream or form lumps. Waiting until the pulp is cold keeps the cream's air intact so the dessert stays light.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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