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Dessert

Red Raspberry Short Cake

A short cake made with flour, baking soda, salt, shortening, sour milk, and red raspberries, baked and served with crushed raspberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Red Raspberry Short Cake

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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Rub in the shortening thoroughly.

  3. Mix in the sour milk or buttermilk until smooth.

  4. If the mixture smells sour, add a pinch of baking soda; if it smells of soda, add more sour milk and a little flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough in half and roll out each half.

  2. Lightly butter one layer and place the other on top.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until risen and golden.

Serve

  1. Crush the raspberries lightly and sweeten to taste; serve between and on top of the cake.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Shortening
Coats flour particles so the shortcake bakes tender and crumbly rather than tough.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Supplies acidity for the baking soda reaction and moisture that hydrates the flour.
Red raspberries
Add tart fruit flavour and juice that contrasts with the sweet, rich layers.

The step that matters

Testing the sour and soda balance. Baking soda needs acid to react fully. If the mixture smells of soda, the leavening is in excess and can taste bitter; if it smells sour, there is not enough soda to neutralise the acid. Adjusting by small amounts keeps the rise even and the flavour clean.

“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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