Skip to main content
Dessert

Peach Short Cake

A baked cake made with flour, butter, egg, and cold water, topped with sweetened mashed peaches and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Peach Short Cake

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

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

  4. Add the beaten egg and cold water, mixing until just combined.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in layers until golden brown.

  2. Once done, split the layers and pour melted butter over them.

  3. Spread each layer with sweetened mashed peaches.

  4. Serve with sauce or whipped 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the shortcake layers as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and stay tender.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to create a crumbly, tender texture and richness.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure to the baked layers.
Peaches
Provide moisture, fruity flavor, and sweetness between the layers.

The step that matters

Mixing the dough until just combined. Overmixing after the liquid is added develops gluten in the flour, which makes the shortcake tough instead of tender. Stop once the flour is just moistened.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Peach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipesPeach IcePeach Ice16 recipes