Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake with buttered crusts and sliced strawberries, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Shortcake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Add melted butter and milk, stirring until combined.

  4. Divide the dough into three pieces.

  5. Roll each piece out to ½ inch thick, fitting your round pans.

Layer and bake

  1. Place the first crust in a pan. Brush the first crust with melted butter.

  2. Add the second crust. Butter the second crust.

  3. Add the third crust on top.

  4. Bake in the oven until golden brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once baked, carefully lift the crusts. Butter each layer again.

  2. Layer sliced strawberries on top. Add another layer of crust. Add more strawberries on top.

  3. Serve with whipped cream and sugar.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crusts as its proteins and starches set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the crusts rise and become light.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and browns the crusts as they bake.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a dough and adds richness and browning through its milk sugars.
Fresh strawberries
Provide moisture, sweetness, and acidity that contrast with the rich crust.

The step that matters

Rolling the crusts to ½ inch thick. Dough that is too thin bakes dry and brittle, while dough that is too thick stays doughy in the centre. Even thickness lets each layer bake through and hold the strawberries.

“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.

More strawberry shortcake recipes

Sauce 6 See all 339 →

You might also like

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