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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

A chilled strawberry dessert with gelatin and whipped cream.

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. Wash and hull the strawberries, discarding any bad ones.

  2. Place the strawberries in a basin and sprinkle with 2 ounces of sugar.

  3. Use a silk sieve to strain the strawberries into a bowl, pressing with a wooden spoon.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Soak ¾ ounce of gelatine in 2 tablespoons of cold water in a small saucepan. Heat the saucepan and stir until the gelatine is melted.

  2. Add 2 ounces of sugar and the lemon juice to the gelatine, stirring well.

  3. Combine the gelatine mixture with the strained strawberries and mix thoroughly.

Set and serve

  1. Whip ½ pint of cream in a separate bowl until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the whipped cream into the strawberry mixture.

  3. Scald a pint mold with hot water, then rinse with cold water.

  4. Pour the strawberry cream into the mold and chill in ice until set.

  5. To serve, dip the mold in boiling water for a second, then invert to release the cream.

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

Fresh strawberries
Provide the main flavour and fruit body of the cream.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid strawberry mixture into a firm, sliceable structure.
Good cream
Whipped to stiffness, it adds richness and a light, airy texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and balances the tartness of the fruit and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Whipped cream is full of trapped air, so it should be folded gently rather than stirred. Vigorous mixing knocks out the air and makes the finished cream dense. The gelatine must also be cool but still liquid, or it may set in lumps before the cream is added.

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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