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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A baked cake made with flour, butter, sugar, milk, and fresh strawberries, topped with 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 ↓

Strawberry 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. 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 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and sugar.

  3. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Stir in milk until just combined.

  5. Divide the dough into two equal portions and shape into rounds.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake in two greased tins for 15-20 minutes until golden.

  2. Let the cakes cool, then slice each in half horizontally.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix strawberries with sugar and let sit for 10 minutes.

  2. Layer strawberries between the biscuit layers, buttering each layer.

  3. Top with remaining strawberries and finish with charlotte russe or whipped 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.

  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. 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 that holds the rounds together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cakes rise and stay light.
Unsalted butter
Coats flour particles, giving a tender, crumbly texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the ingredients form a soft dough.
Fresh strawberries
Provide juicy, sweet-tart fruit that softens and moistens the layers.

The step that matters

Stir in milk until just combined. Stirring too much develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cakes tough instead of tender. Mix only until no dry flour remains and the dough holds together.

“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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