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Dessert

Cherry Shortcake

A shortcake with cherries, butter, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cherry 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. Sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

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

  4. Mix in the beaten egg and milk to form a soft dough.

  5. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick and bake for 25 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once baked, split the shortcake carefully and butter the inside.

  2. Cover the bottom layer with half of the pitted cherries and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Butter the top layer, cover with the remaining cherries, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  4. Serve with whipped 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 shortcake as its main starch and protein base.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and becomes light.
Cherries
Add juicy tartness and fruit flavour between and over the layers.

The step that matters

Rub in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Butter kept in small, cold pieces melts during baking and creates layers and a tender texture. If the butter is overworked into the flour, the shortcake turns dense and tough.

“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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