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 ↓
Short Cake Toast
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 your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar into the flour.
Rub the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles dry powder.
Add the milk or water and mix until combined.
Sprinkle flour on your work surface, turn out the dough, and work it very lightly.
Divide the dough into 3 or 4 parts and roll each part to about ½ inch thick.
Fit the rolled dough onto oblong sheet pans.
Bake and serve
Bake until nicely browned, then cut into squares.
Split each square, butter while hot, and stack them like toast.
Serve immediately.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 once moistened and worked.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the dough rise.
- Baking soda
- Releases carbon dioxide with the acid, lifting the dough as it bakes.
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness, and melts when spread on the hot toast.
- Sweet milk or very cold water
- Hydrates the flour to form the dough; cold liquid keeps the butter from softening too early.
The step that matters
Work the dough very lightly. Overworking develops gluten and makes the dough tough, while minimal handling keeps the shortcake tender and flaky.
“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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