Strawberries blended into a base of milk, cream and cream cheese, set with strawberry gelatine and chilled in glasses. No oven and no technique beyond keeping an eye on the temperature.
Lukewarm, not hot
This is the one thing that decides whether the dessert sets.
Gelatine is protein, and sustained heat damages it. The base of milk, cream and cream cheese is warmed to dissolve the sugar and the cheese, and the dissolved gelatine goes in once that base has cooled to lukewarm.
Add it to a boiling base and the gelatine's setting power drops sharply. You get a dessert that stays soupy in the fridge for hours and never firms up, and there is no way to fix it afterwards.
The cream cheese is doing real work
Two tablespoons sounds negligible against a litre of liquid, and it is not.
It adds a faint sourness that cuts the sweetness of the gelatine and the sugar, and it gives the finished dessert a denser mouthfeel than gelatine alone would. Without it this tastes like jelly with cream in it.
Strawberries in two states
350 g blended into the base and 150 g chopped and stirred through. The blended fruit gives colour and flavour throughout; the chopped pieces give something to bite.
Add the blended fruit off the heat. Strawberry loses its bright colour when cooked and turns a duller brick red.
Three hours, and glasses rather than a mould
This set is soft, which is deliberate: it is meant to be eaten with a spoon from a glass rather than turned out.
If you want to unmould it, add a sachet of unflavoured gelatine as well, and expect to add more sugar to compensate, since the flavoured packet contributes sweetness as well as setting power.
More strawberries
- Strawberry gelatin — the simpler version, three ingredients.
- Strawberry yoghurt — made at home.
- Strawberry milkshake — for the rest of the punnet.
- Chicken in strawberry sauce — the savoury one.
Strawberry Dessert FAQ
Almost certainly heat. Gelatine is protein and loses its setting power when overheated, so the dissolved gelatine has to go into a base that is lukewarm rather than hot. Once that has happened there is no way to rescue it.
More than its quantity suggests. It adds a faint sourness that cuts the sweetness and gives the dessert a denser texture than gelatine alone. Without it the result tastes like jelly with cream in it.
Flavoured strawberry gelatine, which sweetens as well as sets. If you use unflavoured gelatine instead you will need to add more sugar, since the packet is doing part of that work.
Not as written: the set is deliberately soft and meant to be eaten from a glass. For a firmer dessert that unmoulds, add a sachet of unflavoured gelatine as well.
Two or three days covered in the fridge. Beyond that the strawberry pieces soften and start releasing water into the set.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb strawberries (350 g blended, 150 g chopped)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese (gives body and a faint tang against the sweetness)
- 1 cup milk
- 400 g cream (liquid cream, not whipped)
- ½ cup hot water (for dissolving the gelatine)
- 1 packet strawberry gelatine (the flavoured kind: it sweetens as well as sets)
Notas
Instructions
- Dissolve the gelatine in the hot water, stirring until there are no lumps. Set it aside.
- Blend 350 g of the strawberries and set aside.
- Heat the milk, cream, cream cheese and sugar together. Once it is lukewarm rather than hot, stir the gelatine mixture again and add it in.
- Stir until everything has dissolved, take it off the heat and add the blended strawberries.
- Chop the remaining 150 g of strawberries into small pieces, add them to the mixture and stir.
- Pour into glasses or a dish and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
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