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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A baked cake made with flour, butter, milk, and sugar, topped with strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Add enough milk to form a stiff batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Divide the batter into pie pans and bake until golden.

  2. Once baked, layer strawberries and sugar between the cake layers.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 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 main structure of the batter as it sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, helping the batter rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create a tender, crumbly texture rather than a dense one.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a stiff batter that holds its shape while baking.
Strawberries
Add fruit moisture and tartness that contrast with the sweet, tender layers.

The step that matters

Cutting in the butter. If the butter is worked in too far or melts, the crumbs turn greasy and dense instead of forming a light, tender crumb. Keeping the mixture coarse and cold helps the cake stay short and flaky.

“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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