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Dessert

Strawberry Sponge

A gelatin dessert made with strawberries, lemon juice, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Add boiling water to the gelatine.

Whip the mixture

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually beat in the gelatine mixture, one spoonful at a time.

  3. Whip the mixture well.

Set and serve

  1. Layer strawberries and the gelatine mixture in a mold.

  2. Set the mold on ice.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a wobbly gel as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add a light, airy foam to the gelatine.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour in the layers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually beat in the gelatine mixture. Adding warm gelatine slowly to the whipped whites, a spoonful at a time, tempers the mixture so it blends smoothly. Dumping it in at once can deflate the foam and leave streaks of set gelatine.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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