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.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder, then add salt.
Chop the butter into the flour mixture until crumbly.
Mix in the milk or water to form a soft dough.
Divide the dough in half and roll one half to ½ inch thick.
Spread the rolled dough with soft butter.
Roll out the second half to the same size and place it over the first.
Bake and assemble
Bake in a greased pan until golden.
Once baked, separate the layers and let them cool.
Layer sweetened strawberries between the two crusts and sprinkle the top with sugar.
Serve sliced with 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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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 crusts once mixed with liquid.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven so the crusts rise and become light.
- Butter
- Chopped in for tenderness and flakiness, and spread between layers for richness.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds richness and browning.
- Strawberries
- Add sweet, juicy fruit flavour and moisture between the crusts.
The step that matters
Baking the crusts until golden. Baking fully develops browning and sets the structure so the layers separate cleanly and hold up under the juicy fruit. Underbaked crusts stay gummy and soggy.
“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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