Name: Strawberry Short-cake
Ingredients: 1 cup cream or sour milk; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; Flour (enough to roll out the dough); 3 tablespoons butter; 3 pints ripe strawberries; 1 cup granulated sugar

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Make the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, combine the cream or sour milk, salt, and baking soda.
Stir in enough flour to form a soft dough.
Roll the dough into three circles and spread butter on top of each.
Stack the circles on top of each other and bake until golden brown.

Assemble and serve

Once baked, separate the layers and butter the top of the first layer.
Cover the first layer with strawberries and butter the second layer.
Place the second layer (crust side down) on top of the strawberries.
Add more strawberries on top of the second layer and cover with the third layer.
Bake for a few more minutes and serve hot with cream.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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

Cream or sour milk: Reacts with the baking soda to leaven the dough and adds tenderness.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk or cream to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor and helps the layers separate and brown.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the soft dough together.
Strawberries: Provide moisture, sweetness, and fresh acidity between the layers.
Granulated sugar: Sweetens the dish and helps the strawberries release their juices.