Name: Normandy Short Cakes
Ingredients: ½ pound sugar; ½ pound fresh butter; ¼ pound flour; oiled paper; cream cheese; fruit jam

Why it works: Butter and cream cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,747 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Normandy Short Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

Cream together the sugar and butter.
Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.
Roll out the dough thinly and cut into rounds.

Bake and serve

Bake on oiled paper in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
Serve with cream cheese and fruit jam.

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.

Butter + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,747 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + cream cheesetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,791 recipes

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

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

Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps the creamed mixture become light and tender.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a crumbly texture.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the shortcake rounds together as they bake.
Cream cheese: Adds a tangy, creamy contrast when served alongside the baked shortcakes.
Fruit jam: Adds sweetness and fruit flavour to the finished shortcakes.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thinly. Thin rounds bake through evenly and turn crisp and short. Dough rolled too thick stays dense and doughy in the centre.

“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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Cream Cheese46 recipes

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Normandy Short Cakes