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Dessert

Barberry-cream

A chilled dessert made from cream, lemon juice, barberry jelly, isinglass, and optional powdered sugar and chocolate coloring, garnished with preserved barberries.

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

Barberry-cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Combine the cream and lemon juice in a pan.

  2. Whisk until frothy.

Combine and set

  1. Stir the barberry jelly in a basin.

  2. Gently mix in the whipped cream.

  3. Dissolve the isinglass as directed for Lemon Cream.

  4. Add the dissolved isinglass to the mixture.

  5. Add powdered sugar to taste. Mix well.

  6. Mix a little chocolate coloring with the cream before setting.

  7. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  8. Let it set.

Serve

  1. Turn it out onto a dish.

  2. Garnish with preserved barberries.

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. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar 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

Cream
Whipped into a light, rich body that gives the set cream its texture.
Isinglass
Gelatinous setting agent that firms the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Barberry jelly
Provides the tart fruit flavor and color of the cream.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the lemon and barberry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Gently mix in the whipped cream. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air bubbles in the whipped cream intact, so the set cream stays light instead of dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, chocolate. 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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