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Dessert

Short Cake

A light cake made with flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, and sweet milk, layered with strawberries and dusted with powdered sugar.

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 ↓

Short Cake

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 dough

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

  2. In a bowl, combine flour, butter, salt, sugar, and baking powder.

  3. Moisten the mixture with sweet milk to form a soft dough.

Bake and assemble

  1. Roll the dough thick and bake until golden, or divide into two layers.

  2. If using whole strawberries, sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

  3. Layer the cake with strawberries and sugar, then top with another layer of cake.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a soft dough.
Strawberries
Provide fruity acidity and moisture that contrast with the cake.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with sweet milk to form a soft dough. Adding liquid gradually lets the flour hydrate evenly without overworking it. Too much gluten development makes the cake tough, while too little liquid leaves it dry and crumbly.

“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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