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.
Make the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add sweet milk gradually to form a soft dough.
Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and place in a shallow pan.
Bake and assemble
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.
While the cake bakes, prepare the strawberries.
Split the baked cake in half and layer half the strawberries in between.
Sprinkle with white sugar and add cream.
Place the other half of the cake on top and repeat the layering.
Serve
Serve immediately.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cake together.
- Butter
- Cut into the flour to create a tender, crumbly texture.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the dough so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Strawberries
- Add fresh fruit moisture and tartness between the cake layers.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture to the strawberries and cake layers.
The step that matters
Cut in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Stopping at coarse crumbs keeps small pockets of fat intact, which melt during baking and give a tender, flaky texture. Overworking the dough melts or blends the butter in and makes the cake tough.
“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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