Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Cornflour

A custard-like cake made with cornflour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, and strawberries, topped with whipped egg whites and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Cornflour

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Mix cornflour with cold milk until smooth.

  2. Add the mixture to boiling milk while stirring continuously.

  3. Add butter and sugar.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Cool the mixture.

  6. Beat in the yolks of the eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish.

  2. Pour some of the mixture into the dish.

  3. Sprinkle strawberries with sugar.

  4. Layer the strawberries on top of the mixture.

  5. Cover with the remaining mixture.

  6. Whip the egg whites until stiff, adding flavoring and sugar.

  7. Spread the whipped egg whites over the top.

  8. Brown in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 10 to 15 minutes.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard that sets the layers.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard; whites whip into a light topping that browns.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and strawberries and helps the meringue-style topping hold its structure.
Strawberries
Provide fruit flavor and juiciness between the custard layers.

The step that matters

Adding the cornflour mixture to boiling milk. Stirring continuously keeps the starch dispersed; if it is not stirred, lumps form and the custard will not thicken smoothly.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes