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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A baked cake made with flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, milk, butter, topped with strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Shortcake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Add the egg, sweet milk, and softened butter. Mix until combined.

  4. Divide the batter evenly into three greased jelly cake tins.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

  2. Once baked, split the cakes in half and butter each layer.

  3. Layer crushed strawberries and sugar between the cake layers.

  4. Top with whole strawberries.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake layers together.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the batter as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the cake layers.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Underbaking leaves the centre gummy and wet because the starch and egg proteins have not fully set, while overbaking dries the layers. Watching for golden colour and a set centre helps the cakes hold their structure when split.

“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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