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Dessert

Strawberry Kisses

A light dessert made from beaten egg whites, sugar, and strawberry flavoring, baked into small meringue-like kisses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 Kisses

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until nearly stiff.

  2. Gradually beat in the sugar, one handful at a time, until stiff peaks form.

  3. Stir in the remaining sugar and add strawberry flavoring or coloring.

Pipe and bake

  1. Using a star piping tip, pipe the mixture onto well-greased and dusted baking sheets.

  2. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

Finish

  1. Once baked and cool, gently jar the pans to release the kisses.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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 a foam that traps air, giving the kisses their light, crisp structure.
Sugar
Stabilizes the whipped foam and gives the kisses sweetness and a crisp, dry texture.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven until set. A low oven dries the meringue slowly so it sets without browning or cracking. Higher heat can brown the outside and leave the inside sticky or puffed.

Swap the strawberry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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