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Dessert

Strawberry Gateau

A sponge cake hollowed and filled with strawberries, sugar, sherry, syrup, and lemon juice, baked and served with custard or 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 syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberry Gateau

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the cake

  1. Cut the top off the sponge or Madeira cake and scoop out a deep hole, saving the removed cake for another use.

  2. Fill the cavity with ripe strawberries.

  3. Cover the strawberries with sifted sugar.

  4. Pour a mixture of sherry, strawberry syrup, and lemon juice over the strawberries.

  5. Let it soak for a few minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cake in a well-buttered bag and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately with custard or 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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sherry + strawberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Strawberry + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Strawberry + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge or madeira cake
Forms the hollow shell that holds the fruit and soaks up the sherry mixture.
Ripe strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and moisture that fills the cavity.
Sherry
Adds a sharp, aromatic note and moistens the cake as it soaks.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and helps draw out their juices.

The step that matters

Baking in the bag. The cake is baked only briefly in a buttered bag in a hot oven, so it should be well sealed to trap steam and moisture. Too little heat or time may leave the cake pale and underbaked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, strawberry, syrup, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, strawberry, syrup, butter. 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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