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Dessert

Fruit Shortcake

A baked dessert made with flour, lard, butter, sweet cream, eggs, baking powder, sugar, and berries, served hot with butter and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fruit Shortcake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Sift four teaspoons of Breadmaker's Baking Powder into two quarts of flour and one teaspoon of salt; mix thoroughly.

  3. Chop two tablespoonfuls of lard and two tablespoonfuls of butter into the salted flour mixture.

  4. Add two cups of sweet cream to the mixture and combine gently, handling as little as possible.

  5. Roll the dough lightly and quickly into two sheets: the upper crust half an inch thick, the lower crust less than half an inch.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the lower crust in a well-greased baking pan, spread it with raspberries, blackberries, or huckleberries, sprinkle four or five tablespoonfuls of sugar over the berries.

  2. Cover with the upper crust and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes until nicely browned but not dried.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with butter and powdered sugar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

850Calories
20 gProtein
36 gFat
109 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the shortcake together.
Lard
Chopped into the flour, it creates a tender, flaky texture by coating flour particles.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the crust brown and become tender.
Sweet cream
Supplies moisture and fat that bind the dough into a soft, tender crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the crust rise and lighten as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the berries and helps the fruit layer brown at the edges.

The step that matters

Handling the dough. Overworking dough develops gluten, making the shortcake tough rather than tender. Combining gently and rolling quickly keeps the crust 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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