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Dessert

Strawberry Trifle

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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.

Assemble the trifle

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

  2. Wet the cake with sweet cream, then add a layer of fresh strawberries sprinkled with sugar.

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

  4. Gradually pour the custard over the layers.

Top and decorate

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

  2. Heap 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, while whipped whites form the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as it cooks and thickens.
Sponge cake
Provides the soaked, porous base layers that absorb cream and custard.
Sweet cream
Moistens the cake and adds richness to the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard, strawberries and meringue, and helps stabilise the whipped whites.
Strawberries
Add fresh fruit flavour, juice and acidity between the layers and on top.

The step that matters

Cook and stir until the custard thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the custard gets too hot it can curdle or scramble. Cook gently while stirring to keep it smooth and properly thickened.

“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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