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Dessert

Rich Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake of batter, strawberries, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Rich 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. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Add the beaten egg and milk, then mix thoroughly.

  2. Pour the batter into two shallow baking tins and bake until done.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once cooled, place one cake on a serving plate, layer with sweetened strawberries, and top with the second cake.

  2. Spread whipped cream on top and garnish with whole fresh berries.

  3. Serve with crushed strawberries mixed with sugar as a sauce.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the cake's structure once it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown lightly as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cakes rise and turn light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter can set.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter after adding the egg and milk. Once the liquid meets the flour, overmixing develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender. Mix only until the batter is smooth and evenly combined.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, butter, milk, cream):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, butter, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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