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Dessert

Strawberry Meringue

A cake topped with strawberries and a meringue layer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Strawberry Meringue

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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the warmed butter and milk, mixing until smooth.

  3. Sift the baking powder with the flour and stir into the egg mixture.

Bake the cake

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Top and finish

  1. Cover the baked cake with a layer of ripe strawberries.

  2. Top with meringue made from the egg whites and sugar, then bake for a few more minutes until browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide structure and moisture, and help bind the batter together.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer texture in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the cake and stabilize the meringue.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Meringue can over-brown or weep quickly in the oven. Baking only a few minutes until golden protects its texture while the sugar and egg proteins set.

“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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