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 ↓
Short Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
Cut in the cold butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add the beaten eggs and milk, mixing until a smooth dough forms.
Divide the dough into two cakes and roll them out.
Bake and serve
Stack one cake on top of the other and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
Serve with sliced oranges and sugar if desired.
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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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).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 structure of the cakes as it sets in the oven.
- Butter
- Cut into the flour to create a tender, flaky crumb texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough, helping the cakes rise.
- Milk
- Adds moisture so the dough comes together smoothly.
The step that matters
Cutting in the cold butter. The butter must stay cold and be cut into small pieces so it stays distributed as fat particles in the flour. As it melts in the oven it creates pockets of steam and layers, giving a tender, flaky texture rather than a dense one.
“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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