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Dessert

Strawberry or Peach Shortcake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 or Peach 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.

Make the cakes

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

  2. Rub the butter into the flour until combined.

  3. Stir in the sour cream, baking soda, and salt to form a dough.

  4. Roll the dough into cakes ½ inch thick and 10 inches in diameter.

  5. Prick the cakes with a fork and bake until golden.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once baked, split the cakes open and spread with butter.

  2. Layer the bottom piece with strawberries, sprinkling with sugar if desired.

  3. Place the top piece of the cake crust side down over the strawberries.

  4. Add another layer of strawberries, then top with another cake piece right side up.

  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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 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).

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
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the cakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and cakes together.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, contributing tenderness to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Strawberries
Provide sweet, fresh fruit flavor and moisture between the cake layers.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour cream, baking soda, and salt to form a dough.. Mix only until the dough just comes together. Overworking flour develops gluten, which makes the cakes tough rather than tender.

“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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