Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Short Cake II
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, rub together the flour, lard, salt, and baking powder.
Gradually add the sweet milk to form a soft dough.
Knead the dough lightly, then roll it out and cut with a large biscuit cutter.
Bake and serve
Bake in the hot oven until golden.
While hot, break the cakes open, butter the inner surfaces, and add a layer of mashed strawberries.
Serve immediately with the crushed berries.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 dough as its proteins set during baking.
- Lard
- Rubbed into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture by coating flour particles.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture to the cakes.
- Fresh strawberries
- Add fruity flavor and moisture to the split cakes.
The step that matters
Knead the dough lightly. Overworking the dough develops gluten, which makes the cakes tough rather than tender. Handling it gently keeps the texture soft and crumbly.
“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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