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Dessert

Peach Shortcake

A baked peach shortcake made with flour, butter, baking powder, sweet milk, sliced peaches, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Peach Shortcake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and butter until crumbly.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix until combined.

  4. Divide the dough in half and roll each half out.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in two round tins for about 20-25 minutes or until golden.

  2. Once baked, split the cakes in half.

  3. Generously butter the bottom layer and cover with sliced, sugared peaches.

  4. Butter the upper crust, place it on top, and serve hot.

  5. Serve with sugar and cream if desired.

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. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and rubs into the flour to make a crumbly texture.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture to the cakes.
Peaches
Provide fruity sweetness and juice that soaks into the cake layers.

The step that matters

Baking the cakes until golden. Baking until golden browns the surface and sets the crumb; underbaking leaves the centre gummy and wet, while overbaking dries the layers.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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