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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A baked cake made with flour, eggs, milk, baking powder, and salt, topped with sugared strawberries and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Stir in the milk and beaten eggs until combined.

  4. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until golden.

Prepare the strawberries

  1. While the cake bakes, wash and pick the strawberries.

  2. Place strawberries in a dish and sprinkle with sugar to create a syrup; chill for 1 hour.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once the cake is done, split it with a fork and spread a little butter on each half.

  2. Top with chilled strawberries and serve.

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 + 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 its starch sets during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, lifting the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Strawberries
Provide fresh fruit flavor and juice that soaks into the cake, adding moisture and sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the berries and draws out juice to form a syrup.

The step that matters

Bake until golden, not longer. Baking powder gives lift only while the batter is in the oven, and overbaking dries the crumb. Pulling the cake once it is golden keeps it moist and tender enough to absorb the strawberry juice.

“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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