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Dessert

Strawberry Mousse

A chilled dessert made with strawberries, gelatin, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream 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 Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour cold water over gelatin and let it stand for 2 hours.

  2. Mash strawberries and cover with sugar; set aside for 2 hours.

  3. Pour boiling water over gelatin and stir until dissolved.

Make the mousse

  1. Strain sweetened strawberries, add gelatin, and place the bowl in ice water.

  2. Stir until it begins to thicken, then fold in whipped cream until well mixed.

Freeze

  1. Pour into a freezer and pack in ice for 6 hours.

  2. Remove the freezer from the freezer; do not turn it.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 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

Gelatin
Sets the mousse so it holds its shape when chilled.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor, color, and moisture.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and an airy, light texture when whipped and folded in.
Sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and balances their tartness.

The step that matters

Fold the cream in while the gelatin mixture is only beginning to thicken. Gelatin sets as it cools. If the strawberry mixture is already firm, the cream will not blend evenly and lumps will form. If it is still fully liquid, the cream will deflate and the mousse will stay loose, so the cream must be folded in at the right moment.

“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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