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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

A chilled strawberry dessert made with gelatin, milk, cream, custard, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Strawberry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries

  1. Rub strawberries through a fine sieve and mash into a pulp.

Make the base

  1. Soak gelatine in milk and dissolve gently with lemon juice and thinly cut lemon rind.

  2. Mix thick cream with strawberries and castor sugar.

  3. When the milk is cool, add it to the strawberry mixture and stir in custard.

  4. Mix well until creamy, then pour into a wetted mould and refrigerate.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and colour, and moisture once mashed into a pulp.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the lemon and fruit acidity.
Custard
Adds body and softness, making the mixture smoother and richer.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine gently. Gelatine must dissolve fully without boiling; overheating weakens its setting power, and if the milk is still hot when added to the cream, the mixture may thin or split. Letting the milk cool first helps it set evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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