Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 Folly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Run the strawberries through a fine sieve.
Add the egg whites and sugar to the strawberries.
Beat the mixture until it becomes very thick.
Assemble
Line a deep dish with lady-fingers or broken bits of cake.
Pour the beaten mixture over the lined dish.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and moisture for the mixture.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to trap air, giving the folly its light, thick, airy texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
- Lady-fingers or broken bits of cake
- Form a soft base that the fruit mixture sits on and soaks slightly.
The step that matters
Beat the mixture until it becomes very thick. Egg whites must be beaten enough to hold air bubbles; under-beaten whites stay runny and the folly won't set light and thick. Over-beating can make them dry and grainy, so watch for stiff, glossy peaks.
“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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