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Dessert

Strawberry Cream

A chilled dessert made from strawberries, cane sugar, gelatin, lemon juice, 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. Pick over the strawberries and discard any that are not good.

  2. Remove the stems and place the strawberries in a basin.

  3. Sprinkle 1 ounce of cane sugar over the strawberries to draw out the juice.

  4. Pass the strawberries through a silk sieve into a basin using a wooden spoon.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Soak ½ ounce of gelatin in ½ cup of cold water in a small saucepan.

  2. Heat the saucepan and stir the gelatin until melted.

  3. Add 2 ounces of cane sugar and the strained lemon juice to the saucepan.

  4. Pour this mixture through a strainer into the strawberries and mix well.

Add the cream and set

  1. Whip ½ pint of cream in a basin 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 ready to serve.

  5. To serve, dip the mold in boiling water for a second, then shake to loosen 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 the fruit pulp that forms the body of the cream.
Gelatine
Sets the strawberry mixture so the cream holds its shape when unmoulded.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out its juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped cream into the strawberry mixture. Whipped cream is a foam of trapped air; stirring it vigorously knocks that air out and makes the dessert dense. Folding gently keeps the air and a light texture.

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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