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Dessert

Strawberry Short Cake— No, 1

A light cake made with strawberries, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Short Cake— No, 1

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. Wash and slice the strawberries, then mix with sugar and set aside.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the milk.

  4. In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until smooth.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased round pan.

  3. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Serve

  1. Let cool, then layer with strawberries and serve.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing it and helping the leavening react.
Strawberries
Add moisture, sweetness, and fresh fruit flavor to the layers.

The step that matters

Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until smooth. Mixing gently until just smooth avoids overdeveloping the flour's gluten, which would make the cake tough. Adding dry ingredients gradually helps the batter combine evenly without lumps.

“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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