Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A baked shortcake made with flour, butter, sugar, and topped with sliced strawberries and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

  3. Cut in the butter until crumbly.

  4. Add sugar and mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough in half.

  2. Roll each half to fit a biscuit tin or large pie tin.

  3. Spread soft butter on the bottom crust.

  4. Place the top crust on it.

  5. Repeat with the second half of the dough.

  6. Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven.

Assemble and serve

  1. Separate each shortcake by cutting through the buttered layer.

  2. Place the bottom crusts on serving plates.

  3. Top with prepared strawberries.

  4. Pour any remaining juice around the cake.

  5. Serve with sweet 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 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
Provides the structure that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the shortcake rise and turn light.
Butter
Cut into the flour, it creates a tender, crumbly texture and adds richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.
Strawberries
Add fresh flavor, bright acidity and juice that moistens the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven. Baked goods keep cooking from residual heat after leaving the oven. Pulling the shortcake once it is golden brown helps prevent it from drying out and becoming dense.

“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.

More strawberry shortcake recipes

Sauce 6 See all 339 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes