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Dessert

Strawberry Mould

A chilled dessert of lemon jelly, strawberries, and whipped cream set in a mould.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly layers

  1. Line a mould with lemon jelly.

  2. Add a layer of halved strawberries and set with more jelly.

  3. Place a smaller mould in the center and fill the outer space with alternating layers of strawberries and lemon jelly.

  4. Chill the mould on ice to set.

Make the cream filling

  1. Whip ½ pint of cream to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually mix in dissolved gelatine and strawberry pulp sweetened to taste.

Assemble and chill

  1. Once the jelly is set, remove the inner mould with warm water.

  2. Fill the space with the whipped cream and strawberry pulp mixture.

  3. Return the mould to the ice for 1-2 hours before serving with 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  5. Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 fruit flavour and colour, and set within the jelly layers as the visible pattern.
Lemon jelly
Sets firm to hold the mould's shape and suspend the strawberry layers.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, airy texture and richness to the filling.
Leaf gelatine
Sets the strawberry cream filling so it holds its shape when unmoulded.
Strawberry pulp
Adds concentrated strawberry flavour and moisture to the cream filling.

The step that matters

Removing the inner mould with warm water. Warming the inner mould's surface lightly melts the jelly touching it, so the mould releases cleanly. Too much heat would melt the set jelly and blur the layers, so brief, gentle warmth is needed.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, strawberry, 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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