Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Dainties

Meringue shells filled with strawberry ice cream and lemon or orange water ice, served on whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Strawberry and almond work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Strawberry Dainties

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the meringue

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites and salt to stiff peaks using an egg whisk.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  4. Shape the meringue into twelve oval shapes about 1.5 inches high on parchment paper.

  5. Dredge the meringues with sugar and place them in the cool oven.

Bake and shape

  1. Bake for 35 minutes without allowing them to color.

  2. Cool the meringues for 30 minutes, then wet the paper to remove them easily.

  3. Press the soft inside of each shell against the firm outside to create a hollow shell.

  4. Dry the meringues in the oven until completely dry, about 30 minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill half the shells with strawberry ice cream and the others with lemon or orange water ice.

  2. Serve the filled shells on a circle of 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. Strawberry + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Strawberry + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

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

  5. Strawberry + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,206 recipes

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

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 sets and gives the meringue shells their structure.
Powdered sugar
Stabilizes the whipped foam and adds sweetness to the shells.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming a soft base under the filled shells.

The step that matters

Bake without coloring. Meringue browns quickly at high heat, and color changes its flavor and texture. A low oven keeps the shells white and lets them dry out evenly and crisp.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, strawberry, cream, almond. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesStrawberry Ice CreamStrawberry Ice Cream122 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes