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 ↓
Plain Shortcake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Sift the baking powder or cream of tartar and soda with the flour and salt.
Rub in the butter and lard.
Mix in the milk gradually, stirring thoroughly but quickly.
Flour the pastry board and rolling pin, then roll out the dough about 1 inch thick.
Shape and bake
Cut out with a biscuit cutter and place in buttered baking pans.
Bake in a hot oven until light brown.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 structure that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
- Butter and lard
- Fat coats the flour, tenderising the crumb and keeping the shortcake short.
- Sweet, cold milk
- Moistens the flour to form a dough; cold liquid helps keep the texture tender.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough, lifting it so the shortcake rises and turns light.
- Soda and cream of tartar
- Together they form an acid-base leavening that lifts the dough when baking soda is used instead of baking powder.
The step that matters
Mix in the milk gradually, stirring thoroughly but quickly.. Overworking wheat flour once it is wet develops gluten, which makes the shortcake tough. Mixing just until combined keeps the crumb tender and light.
“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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