Why it works: Sugar and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Make Strawberry Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the strawberries
Remove the stalks from the strawberries and rub them through a clean sieve.
Mix the strawberries with the sifted sugar until dry.
Set the cream
Dissolve the isinglass in the milk and stir it into the strawberry mixture.
Pour the mixture into a prepared mould and chill in rough ice until ready to serve.
Carefully turn out the cream and garnish the dish as desired.
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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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Isinglass
- Sets the milk and strawberry mixture into a firm, sliceable cream when chilled.
- Milk
- Adds richness and creaminess, giving the set cream a smooth, soft texture.
- Sifted sugar
- Sweetens the cream and helps balance the tartness of the strawberries.
- Strawberries
- Provide the main flavour, colour and fruit body of the cream.
The step that matters
Dissolve the isinglass in the milk. Isinglass is a gelatin-like setting agent that needs to be fully dissolved before mixing, otherwise it can leave lumps or fail to set evenly throughout the cream.
“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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