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Dessert

Pineapple Shortcake

A shortcake made with flour, baking powder, salt, butter, lard, milk, and topped with canned pineapple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pineapple 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.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Rub in the butter and lard until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Stir in enough milk to form a soft dough that is too soft to roll.

Bake and assemble

  1. Turn the dough into a greased pie tin and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Cut a circle around the top, remove the crust, and scoop out some of the crumb from the center.

  3. Spread the center with butter and cover with canned pineapple.

  4. Keep in a warm oven until ready to serve, with some juice and 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Forms the structure of the shortcake base.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping it rise and turn light.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Lard
Rubbed into the flour, it adds tenderness and a short, crumbly texture.
Canned pineapple
Adds sweetness and acidity that moistens the centre of the shortcake.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk only until the dough just comes together. Overmixing once liquid is added develops gluten in the flour, making the shortcake tough rather than tender. A soft dough that is too soft to roll is the goal.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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