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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake made with flour, butter, baking powder, egg, milk, and topped with strawberries and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

  2. Work in butter using your fingertips.

  3. Beat the egg until very light, then add milk and combine with the flour mixture.

  4. Toss the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it into two parts.

  5. Pat and roll out each part, then bake in round layer cake pans at 400°F (200°C).

Bake and split

  1. Once baked, split the layers, remove the soft part, and spread with butter.

Assemble and serve

  1. Sprinkle strawberries with sugar, warm them slightly, crush them, and place between and on top of the shortcakes.

  2. Cover with sweetened and flavored whipped cream, and garnish with whole berries.

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the shortcake as the main body of the dough.
Butter
Worked into the flour to create a tender, crumbly texture and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the shortcakes rise and become light.
Egg
Adds structure and richness and helps bind the dough together.
Milk
Moistens the dry ingredients so they combine into a workable dough.
Strawberries
Provide fruity flavor and juicy moisture against the rich shortcake.

The step that matters

Working in the butter. Rubbing cold butter into flour in small pieces coats the flour and leaves pockets that steam during baking, producing a tender, flaky crumb. If the butter melts into the flour, the shortcake turns dense and tough.

“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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