Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Short Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine flour, ground almonds, butter, ground rice, caster sugar, and the unbeaten egg in a bowl.
Knead the mixture for 5 minutes.
Shape and bake
Place the dough on a cold surface and roll it out.
Cut into cake shapes and place on a cold baking sheet.
Bake for 30 minutes and let cool on the sheet.
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.
-
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,456 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Butter
- Provides fat that makes the shortcake rich and tender as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the shortcake's shape while it bakes.
- Caster sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the shortcake brown lightly in the oven.
- Ground almonds
- Add moisture and a nutty flavour, and give a tender, crumbly texture.
- Egg
- Binds the dough together and adds richness to the shortcake.
The step that matters
Keeping the dough and baking sheet cold. Cold butter stays in solid pieces that melt during baking, creating steam and layers that keep the shortcake tender and crumbly. If the dough warms up, the butter melts into the flour early, leaving a denser, greasier texture and spreading shapes out of shape.
“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.
More shortcake recipes
You might also like
Rice Cake120 recipes
Rice Cream43 recipes
Rice Jelly42 recipes
Almond Sponge Cake26 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.