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Dessert

Strawberry Trifle

A layered dessert of custard, strawberries, sponge cake, and whipped egg whites.

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 Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and sugar in a double boiler.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs until thick.

  3. Stir the yolks into the milk just as it reaches boiling point.

  4. Remove from heat as soon as the mixture thickens.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Layer the trifle

  1. Cut slices of stale sponge cake.

  2. Line the bottom of a glass dish with the cake slices, moistening with cream.

  3. Add a layer of ripe strawberries.

  4. Sprinkle the layer with powdered sugar.

  5. Continue layering strawberries until the dish is three-quarters full.

  6. Pour the custard over the layers.

Top and decorate

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks with some powdered sugar.

  2. Pile the whipped whites on top.

  3. Decorate with a few strawberries among the froth.

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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they set with heat, and whites whip into the stiff topping.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, which thickens as the yolks set.
Sponge cake
Soaks up cream and custard to give the trifle its soft, layered body.
Strawberries
Add fresh fruit flavour and moisture between the cake and custard layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Remove from heat as soon as the mixture thickens. Egg yolks set quickly at high heat and can curdle or scramble if overcooked, leaving the custard grainy instead of smooth.

“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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