Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Trifle

A layered dessert of custard, sponge cake, strawberries, sweet cream, and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, then stir into the heated milk.

  3. Cook and stir until the custard thickens.

Layer the trifle

  1. Slice the sponge cake and layer it in a glass dish.

  2. Wet the cake with sweet cream and cover with fresh strawberries sprinkled with sugar.

  3. Repeat the layers of cake, cream, and strawberries until the dish is three-quarters full.

  4. Pour the custard gradually over the layers.

Top and decorate

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, adding a little sugar and strawberry juice.

  2. Spread the meringue on top and decorate with rows of bright strawberries.

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

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the base of the custard that soaks into and fills the layers.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and whites whip into the meringue topping for structure.
Sponge cake
Absorbs the cream and custard, giving the trifle its soft, layered body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard, strawberries and meringue, and helps stabilise the whipped whites.
Sweet cream
Moistens the cake layers, adding richness and softness.

The step that matters

Cook and stir until the custard thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot they scramble. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth and thick enough to pour over the layers.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes