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Dessert

Strawberry Pudding

A baked strawberry cake topped with crushed strawberries and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat together 1 cup of sugar, lemon juice, and egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the yolk mixture.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and mix until just combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a buttered pan and bake until golden.

Assemble and serve

  1. Crush the strawberries and mix with the remaining 1 cup of sugar; set aside in a cool place.

  2. Top the cake with the crushed strawberries and then add 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Flour provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and the strawberries, and helps the strawberries become syrupy.
Strawberries
Crushed berries add fruity sweetness and moisture to the topping.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy layer over the cake and fruit.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Egg whites hold air only while whipped; folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the cake rises light rather than dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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