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Dessert

Steawbeeey Shortcake

A cake made with flour, baking powder, butter, milk, and strawberries, served with sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steawbeeey 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, butter, salt, and sweet milk until combined.

  3. Divide the batter between two pie plates and bake until golden.

  4. While the cakes are baking, mash the strawberries and add sugar to sweeten.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once the cakes are baked, split one in half, spread butter on the bottom layer, and add a layer of strawberries.

  2. Place the top layer on, inner side up, spread butter, and add another layer of strawberries.

  3. Serve with whipped sweet cream on top.

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 + milktop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the shortcake batter as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the cakes and separates the layers with fat.
Strawberries
Provide fruity sweetness and juice that moistens the cake layers.
Sweet cream
Adds a cool, rich topping that balances the tart-sweet berries.

The step that matters

Bake until golden, then split the cakes while warm. Baking until golden sets the crumb and browns the surface for flavor, so the layers hold their shape when split and filled.

“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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