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Dessert

Apricot Short Cake

A short cake made with flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk, butter, and apricots soaked in sugar water, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Apricot Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the shortcake

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

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

  3. Cut in the butter using two knives until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Gradually add the milk and mix until combined.

  5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and pat or roll it out.

  6. Cut into individual cakes and place them on a baking sheet.

  7. Brush the tops with melted butter and bake for 12 minutes.

Prepare the apricots

  1. Wash the dried apricots and soak them overnight in water.

  2. Drain the apricots, reserving the juice, and add 1 cup of sugar to the juice.

  3. Boil the juice for 5 minutes, then add the apricots and let cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Split the short cakes, place some soft apricots between the layers, and top with whole apricots.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  5. 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 structure of the shortcake crumb as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the shortcakes rise and turn light.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create flaky pockets and add richness and tenderness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour into a soft dough and adds moisture and browning.
Dried apricots
Provide the fruit flavor and soft, tangy filling between the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the shortcake and the apricot syrup, and helps browning.

The step that matters

Cut in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Overworking the dough once the butter is cut in develops gluten and makes the shortcake tough. Keeping the butter in small cold pieces creates flaky layers as it melts in the oven.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, butter, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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