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Dessert

Raspberry Shortcake

A baked shortcake made with flour, butter, milk, and topped with macerated raspberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Raspberry Shortcake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Add milk gradually to form a soft dough.

  5. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick.

Bake and assemble

  1. Place in pans and bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Cut the edge of the baked crust.

  3. Break apart the layers of the crust.

  4. Butter the under crust.

  5. Fill with berries that have been mixed with sugar for 30 minutes.

  6. Cover with the upper crust.

  7. Top with more berries.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 dough once mixed with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the shortcake rises and turns light.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to tenderize the crumb and add richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough holds together into a soft dough.
Fresh raspberries
Provide tart fruit flavor and juice that moistens the layers.
Sugar
Draws juice out of the berries and sweetens the fruit filling.

The step that matters

Rub in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Butter coated in flour stays in separate pockets that melt during baking and create flaky layers. Overworking the mixture or melting the butter first makes the crust dense and tough.

“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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