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Dessert

Bina's Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake made with flour, butter, sugar, and strawberries, baked and served warm with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bina's Strawberry Shortcake

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. Sift baking powder into the flour.

  3. In a bowl, mix flour, butter, sugar, and salt.

  4. Add enough sweet milk or water to form a soft dough.

  5. Roll out the dough thinly, almost like pie crust.

Layer and bake

  1. Place one layer in a baking pan and spread with a little butter, then sprinkle with flour.

  2. Add another layer of dough and repeat until all dough is used, making four layers.

  3. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden.

Assemble and serve

  1. Turn the cake upside down and remove the top layer.

  2. Spread the exposed layer with sweetened strawberries.

  3. Continue layering with strawberries and remaining layers.

  4. Serve warm with sugar and whipped cream.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough so the layers hold together when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and turn light and tender.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and helps the layers separate and brown.
Strawberries
Provide moisture, sweetness and fruity acidity that soak into the warm layers.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thinly and evenly. Thin, even layers bake through and turn golden at the same rate. Thick or uneven dough stays doughy in the middle and rises 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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