Name: Another Way to Make Trifle
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons white wine; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1½ pints thick cream; pieces of sponge cake or sponge biscuits; sweet wine for soaking; preserved strawberries or other fruit; edible flowers for garnish

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 ↓

Another Way to Make Trifle

Ingredients

3 tablespoons white wine
1 tablespoon sugar
1½ pints thick cream
pieces of sponge cake or sponge biscuits
sweet wine for soaking
preserved strawberries or other fruit
edible flowers for garnish

Directions

Make the cream

Mix white wine, sugar, and thick cream.
Whisk the mixture and set aside the froth.

Assemble and garnish

Soak sponge cake or biscuits in sweet wine, then layer them in a dish.
Add a layer of preserved strawberries or other fruit on top.
Pile the froth over the fruit, then pour the remaining cream into the bottom of the dish.
Garnish with edible flowers.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
White wine + winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,235 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,760 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,874 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick cream: Forms the rich, creamy body of the dessert and the whipped froth on top.
Sponge cake or sponge biscuits: Soaks up the sweet wine, giving a soft, moist base layer.
Preserved strawberries or other fruit: Adds sweetness and acidity that cut through the rich cream.
Sugar: Sweetens the cream mixture and helps it whisk into a stable froth.

The step that matters

Whisk the mixture and set aside the froth. Whisking cream too little yields no airy froth, while overwhipping turns it grainy or buttery. Stop when it holds soft peaks, since the froth is spooned over the fruit as a light topping.

“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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Another Way to Make Trifle