Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Merangue

Layered meringue with strawberry preserves baked into a dessert.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,060 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Merangue

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar and salt with a spoon.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a dish and drop spoonfuls of the meringue onto the bottom.

  2. Add half spoonfuls of strawberry preserves on top of the meringue.

  3. Continue layering until all meringue and preserves are used.

  4. Bake for 25 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve very cold with whipped 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. Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Egg + strawberrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,509 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam that gives the meringue its structure and airy lift.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and dissolves more easily into the whites than granulated sugar.
Strawberry preserves
Adds fruit sweetness and moisture between the meringue layers.

The step that matters

Gradually beat in the powdered sugar. Adding sugar slowly lets it dissolve fully into the whites, keeping the meringue glossy and stable instead of weepy or grainy.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

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.

More strawberry meringue recipes

Pudding 3 See all 8 →

You might also like

Strawberry Ice CreamStrawberry Ice Cream122 recipesStrawberry SherbetStrawberry Sherbet48 recipesStrawberry Water IceStrawberry Water Ice24 recipesStrawberry FoamStrawberry Foam7 recipes