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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake of dough and strawberries, sweetened with sugar and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water.

  3. In a bowl, mix flour, butter, sour cream or milk, egg, white sugar, baking soda, and salt until combined.

  4. Roll out the dough rather thin and place it in shallow baking pans.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the dough thickly with ripe strawberries and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Add another layer of dough on top and bake until done.

Serve

  1. Cut into small squares and serve hot with sugar and 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 dough as its proteins and starches set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and flaky as it bakes.
Sour cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the dough.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the dough to produce gas that helps it rise.
Strawberries
Provide fruity sweetness and juiciness in the filling.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the dough. Clumps can leave bitter spots and uneven rising.

“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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