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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A baked cake made with flour, butter, lard, egg, baking powder, sugar, milk, and crushed sugared strawberries.

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

Strawberry Shortcake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make and bake the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, butter and lard, egg, baking powder, and sugar.

  2. Add milk gradually until the mixture is as soft as drop cakes.

  3. Divide the batter into two thin sheets and bake until done.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once baked, butter the sheets and layer the crushed strawberries between them and on top.

  2. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the shortcake sheets as its starch sets in the oven.
Butter and lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and contributes flavour and richness.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the sheets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the sheets rise and become light.
Strawberries
Provide moisture, sweetness and fruity acidity that contrast with the rich sheets.

The step that matters

Adding milk gradually. Too much liquid at once makes the dough slack and hard to handle, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly. Adding it slowly lets you reach the soft, drop-cake consistency the recipe calls for.

“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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