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Dessert

Berry Short Cake

A simple cake made with wheat flour, coconut, and berries, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and peach share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Berry Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix cold water, wheat flour, and grated coconut to form a stiff batter.

  2. Drop the batter into hot bread pans, about ¾ inch thick.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  2. Once cooled, split the cakes in half with the crust side down.

  3. Cover each half with your choice of berries or peaches.

  4. Serve with fruit sauce 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. Coconut + peachtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together53 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + coconuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Wheat + peachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cakes their structure.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so it forms a stiff batter that holds its shape in the pan.
Grated coconut
Adds fat and moisture, softening the crumb and contributing flavor.
Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or whortleberries
Add juiciness, tartness and color that contrast with the plain cake.

The step that matters

Drop the batter into hot bread pans. Because the batter is stiff, it must go into pans that are already hot so the surface sets and browns quickly. Starting in cold pans lets the batter spread and bake dense and pale.

Swap the peach

The recipe marks peach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, coconut, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, coconut, sauce. 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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