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Dessert

Breakfast Berry Shortcake

A shortcake made with flour, buttermilk, berries, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Breakfast Berry 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 the dough

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

  2. Mix the flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.

  3. Rub in the coconut and butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Add the buttermilk and egg yolk.

  5. Mix until just combined.

  6. Roll the dough into a sheet ½ inch thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fit the dough into a greased baking pan.

  2. Strew the berries over the dough.

  3. Sprinkle sugar over the berries.

  4. Cover with another sheet of dough.

  5. Bake until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Cut the baked cake into squares.

  2. Butter the squares.

  3. Serve hot with sugar.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and keeps the crumb tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Cottolene
Fat that coats flour particles, making the crumb tender and short.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dough.
Berries
Add moisture and fruity flavor between and under the layers.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined.. Once the liquid meets the flour, overmixing develops gluten, which makes the shortcake tough instead of tender. Stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

“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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