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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, egg, flour, baking soda, milk, strawberries, and a syrup of water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Short-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.

  3. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

Make the cake

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and cream of tartar.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  3. Combine all ingredients and pour into a flat pan.

  4. Bake until golden brown, then let cool.

Assemble

  1. Cut the cake into three layers or in half.

  2. Cover the first layer with strawberries and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Add the second layer of cake, then more strawberries and sugar.

  4. Top with the final layer of cake and dust with sugar.

Make the syrup and serve

  1. For the syrup, boil the water and sugar until dissolved, then cool.

  2. Soak the strawberries in the syrup before placing them on the 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. 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. Butter + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating flour particles with fat.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during baking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown, then let cool. Baking sets the batter's structure and browns its surface. An underbaked centre stays gummy, and cutting the cake before it has cooled fully can make the layers crumble.

“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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