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Dessert

Plain Short Cake

A simple shortcake made with flour, butter, lard, salt, baking powder, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder thoroughly.

  2. Add the butter and lard, then enough cold water to form a thick paste.

  3. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick.

Bake

  1. Cut into squares and prick with a fork.

  2. Bake immediately in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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. 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the shortcake as gluten and starch set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the shortcake tender and rich in flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the shortcake flaky and tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the shortcake rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after shaping. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is moistened, so waiting lets it lose lift before the shortcake reaches the oven and sets.

“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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