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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A layered cake of buttered dough topped with sliced strawberries and sweet cream.

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 Short-cake

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 and baking powder.

  3. Cut in the butter until crumbly.

  4. Add milk gradually to form a dough.

  5. Divide the dough in half.

  6. Roll each half to fit a biscuit tin or large pie tin.

Bake and layer

  1. Spread soft butter on the bottom crust.

  2. Place the top crust over it.

  3. Repeat with the second half of the dough.

  4. Bake in the oven until golden brown.

  5. Once baked, separate the layers with a knife where the butter was spread.

  6. Butter each crust generously.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the bottom crust on serving plates.

  2. Top with prepared strawberries mixed with sugar.

  3. Place the top crusts on the fruit.

  4. Pour any remaining juice around the cake and serve with sweet cream.

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 crust as its starch and gluten set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, lifting it so the crusts rise and become tender.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create flaky layers and add richness and browning to the crusts.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to bind the dough and adds moisture and tenderness.
Strawberries
Provide the fresh, sweet-tart fruit and juice that moisten the shortcake.
Sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and helps draw out their juice.

The step that matters

Separating the layers after baking. Cutting the crust while it is still hot can crush its soft, flaky layers. Letting it cool slightly before splitting keeps the layers intact and the crumb tender.

“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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