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Dessert

Cranberry Shortcake

A layered cake made with batter, baked, topped with boiled cranberries and a powdered-sugar butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Cranberry 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 cakes

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

  2. In a bowl, rub together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg and milk, mixing well.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then mix until combined.

  5. Divide the batter into two pie pans and bake for about 20 minutes.

Cook the cranberries

  1. In a saucepan, combine cranberries, water, and sugar; boil for 7 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once the cakes are baked, place one on a large platter and lightly butter it.

  2. Spread the cooked cranberries thickly on top of the first cake.

  3. Place the second buttered cake on top and cover with remaining cranberries.

  4. For the sauce, mix powdered sugar and butter until smooth.

  5. Add the beaten egg white and boiling cranberry juice; mix well and serve immediately.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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 cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the cake and sauce.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the cake.
Cranberries
Provide tart flavor and moisture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and the cranberries and helps the cranberries set into a thick filling.

The step that matters

Boil the cranberries for the full 7 minutes. Cooking cranberries with sugar lets pectin and their natural juices thicken, so the filling spreads thickly rather than running off the cake.

“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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