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Dessert

Strawberry Meringue

A puff pastry base topped with strawberries and a thick meringue, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Prepare a puff pastry and roll it out to a large circle, about the size of a dinner plate.

  2. Bake the pastry in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

  3. Remove the pastry from the oven and layer strawberries rolled in sugar on top.

Make and bake the meringue

  1. In a bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the strawberries, about an inch thick.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Serve fresh, but not hot.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky base that holds the fruit and meringue.
Strawberries
Add sweet, juicy fruit flavour and moisture under the meringue.
Egg whites
Whisked into a foam that sets into the meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped egg whites to stabilise the meringue and sweeten it.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks, and any trace of fat or yolk can stop them foaming. Gradually adding sugar stabilises the foam so the meringue holds its shape and bakes into a light, set topping.

“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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