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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A layered cake made with flour, butter, milk, and sliced strawberries, topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Short-cake

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. In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  3. Add softened butter and mix until crumbly.

  4. Gradually add milk to form a soft dough.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake the dough in the oven until golden brown.

  2. Once baked, split the cake into two or three layers.

  3. Butter one layer and sprinkle with sugar.

  4. Add a layer of sliced strawberries and cover with milk or cream.

  5. Place the next layer on top and sprinkle with sugar.

  6. If using three layers, repeat the berry layer process.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk to form a soft dough. Adding milk too quickly can make the dough sticky or uneven, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly. Adding it gradually lets you reach a soft dough that bakes up tender rather than tough or dense.

“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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