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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A shortcake made with flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, milk, and sweetened strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

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.

Make the shortcake

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Mix flour, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.

  3. Add melted butter and enough sweet milk to make a soft dough.

  4. Bake in pie tins at 400°F (200°C) until done.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the baked shortcake open and spread with butter.

  2. Fill with crushed and sweetened strawberries.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness and keeps the baked shortcake moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and becomes light.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour so the mixture forms a soft dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the shortcake brown lightly as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the dough. Too much milk makes the dough sticky and tough, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly. Aim for a soft dough that holds together, and handle it gently so the shortcake stays tender.

“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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