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Dessert

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

A chilled strawberry dessert made with whipped cream and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberry base

  1. Bruise the hulled strawberries in a basin with the powdered sugar.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Make and set the cream

  1. Mix the strawberry puree with the whipped cream and gelatin.

  2. Pour the mixture into an oiled mold.

  3. Set the mold in rough ice until firm.

Serve

  1. Turn out the Bavarian cream onto a dish.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 the fruit puree that gives the cream its colour and taste.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the strawberry puree and dissolves easily into the fruit.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, giving the Bavarian a light, creamy texture.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so the cream holds its shape when turned out of the mold.

The step that matters

Set the mold in rough ice until firm. Gelatin only sets when it is well chilled, and it needs time to form a network that holds the whipped cream. Too little chilling leaves the cream soft and it will slump when turned out.

“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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