Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Peach 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Beat the eggs until very light.
Add sugar, flour, and baking powder to the eggs.
Stir in boiling water until well combined.
Pour the batter into two greased cake pans.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden.
Assemble and serve
Once cool, cut each cake in half horizontally.
Spread butter on the bottom half of each cake.
Layer sliced peaches on the buttered halves and sprinkle with sugar.
Top with the upper half of the cake, crust side down.
Garnish with more sliced peaches and serve with whipped cream.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Eggs
- Beaten until very light, they trap air that gives the cake its structure and lift.
- Flour
- Provides the starch structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the layers and keeps the cake from tasting dry.
- Peaches
- Add juicy moisture, sweetness and fruity aroma between the cake layers.
The step that matters
Beating the eggs until very light. Whipped eggs hold air that the batter depends on for lift. If they are under-beaten, the cakes may bake up dense and flat.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, butter, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, butter, 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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