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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A baked cake made with flour, sour milk, butter, baking soda, and strawberries, topped with sweetened strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, sour milk, and butter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Mix lightly and pour into a baking dish.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Mash and sweeten the strawberries.

  3. Once the cake is baked, split it in half and butter each layer.

  4. Spread the sweetened strawberries between the layers and serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 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 + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Provides the structure that holds the cake together after baking.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cake rises and stays tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and coats each layer for flavor.
Strawberries
Add moisture, sweetness and fresh fruit flavor between the layers.

The step that matters

Mix lightly and pour into the baking dish. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender, and the baking soda should be fully mixed in so the rise is even.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, sugar. 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.

More strawberry shortcake recipes

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