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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A baked shortcake topped with sliced strawberries and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Stir in sugar and enough milk to form a soft dough.

  5. Roll out the dough and cut into rounds.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden.

  2. Split the baked shortcakes in half and spread butter on each slice.

  3. Layer sweetened strawberries between the slices and serve hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins set during baking.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so the baking soda reacts and helps the shortcakes rise.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide with the acid, leavening the shortcakes so they rise and turn tender.
Unsalted butter
Cut into the flour to create flaky layers and a tender, rich crumb.
Fresh strawberries
Add moisture, tartness and fresh flavour that balance the sweet shortcake.

The step that matters

Cut in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Cold butter left in pea-sized pieces melts during baking and creates steam pockets, giving flaky layers. If the butter is overworked or softened, the dough becomes dense and tough rather than tender.

“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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