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Dessert

Strawberky Shortcake

A layered crust cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

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

Strawberky Shortcake

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

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

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

  3. Add melted butter and mix until a dough forms.

  4. Divide the dough into three pieces and roll each out to ½ inch thick, the size of your pans.

Bake and layer

  1. Place the first crust in a round jelly cake pan and spread with melted butter.

  2. Add the second crust, butter it well, then add the third crust on top.

  3. Bake in the oven until golden brown.

  4. Once baked, carefully lift the crusts and butter each layer again.

  5. Layer strawberries on top, then cover with another layer of crust and more strawberries.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream and sugar.

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 + 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. 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 crusts as its proteins and starch set when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the crusts rise and become light.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and browns the crusts as they bake.
Strawberries
Add fresh, sweet-tart fruit flavour and moisture between the layers.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a soft, cool texture when whipped and served.

The step that matters

Butter each layer while the crusts are still warm. Butter applied to warm crusts soaks in and keeps them moist and tender. Once the crusts cool and firm up, the butter sits on the surface and the layers can turn dry.

“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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