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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A layered dessert of shortcake crusts, sugared strawberries, and a thickened milk cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Strawberry Short-cake

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.

Make the shortcake

  1. Prepare the shortcake by mixing flour, baking powder, salt, and butter until crumbly.

  2. Add milk gradually to form a dough, then shape into two crusts.

  3. Bake the crusts at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Make the filling

  1. Mix strawberries with sugar and let sit to release juices.

  2. For the cream, boil milk with sugar, salt, and butter.

  3. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold milk, add to the boiling mixture, and stir until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in beaten egg whites, then let cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread sugared strawberries on the bottom crust, pour cream over, and top with the second crust.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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 crusts once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the crusts rise and stay light.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the shortcake tender and crumbly.
Strawberries
Provide fruit flavor, moisture, and a bright sweet-tart taste.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream when it is heated with the liquid.
Egg whites
Add structure and airiness to the cream when folded in.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream with cornstarch. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil, so it must be stirred constantly while heating. Adding it to the milk without stirring can cause lumps, and stopping before it thickens leaves the cream runny.

“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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