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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the egg and mix well.
Stir in the sweet milk.
In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.
Divide the batter into two layers and bake until golden.
Make the filling and assemble
For the filling, combine 1 cup sugar, the white of 1 egg (not beaten), and 1 cup mashed strawberries.
Beat the filling for 30 minutes.
Spread the filling between the baked layers just before serving.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise and become light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the batter brown as it bakes.
- Mashed strawberries
- Supply fruit flavour and moisture to the filling.
The step that matters
Beat the filling for 30 minutes. The filling is made with an unbeaten egg white and mashed strawberries, and long beating whips air into the mixture so it thickens and turns light rather than runny. Beating too briefly leaves it loose and watery.
“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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