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Dessert

Short Cake

A simple cake made with flour, butter, egg, water, baking powder, and sugar, baked until golden and served with fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix 3 cups of flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

  3. Cut in ½ cup of butter until the mixture is crumbly.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg until light, then stir in 1 cup of cold water.

  5. Combine the wet ingredients with the flour mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the batter evenly in 2 well-greased shallow pans.

  2. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar over the top of each pan.

  3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden.

  4. Serve with fresh or canned crushed fruit.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 main structure of the shortcake as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the shortcake rise and become light.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create flaky pockets and add richness and tenderness.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and helps bind the batter.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Cut in the butter until crumbly. Butter left in pieces melts in the oven and creates flaky layers. If it is worked in too fully, the shortcake turns dense and tough instead of 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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