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
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.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and butter until well combined.
Add sweet milk gradually to form a stiff batter or roll like biscuit dough.
Bake and assemble
Divide the batter into two buttered pie tins and bake until golden.
Once baked, slice each cake in half and butter the cut sides.
On the bottom half, layer sweetened strawberries that have been crushed to release their juices.
Place the top half of the cake upside down on the strawberries.
Cover with more strawberries and sprinkle with additional sugar.
Serve with a pitcher of sweetened cream.
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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Sugar + creamtop 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 cake as its starch sets during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, lifting the cake so it rises and stays tender.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and browns the cut surfaces for flavor.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture to the crumb.
- Fresh strawberries
- Provide moisture, bright acidity, and fruity flavor between the cake layers.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the strawberries and draws out their juices for a syrup.
The step that matters
Crushing the strawberries. Crushing releases juice that soaks into the cake and forms a syrup. Without enough crushing, the layers stay dry or the juice pools unevenly.
“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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