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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A baked shortcake topped with mashed strawberries and a butter-sugar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

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.

Prepare the shortcake

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, butter, baking powder, and enough milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Press the dough into a large square tin and bake until golden.

Prepare the topping

  1. While the crust is baking, mash the strawberries and sweeten them slightly.

  2. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the strawberry mixture over the baked shortcake 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Provides the structure that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderising the crumb and contributing to a golden crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and becomes light.
Strawberries
Supply the fruit flavour and juice that moisten the shortcake when spooned over it.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps the crust brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking the shortcake until golden. Underbaking leaves the dough pale, gummy and wet inside, while overbaking dries it out. Baking until golden gives a set, tender base that can hold the juicy strawberries without turning soggy.

“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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