Name: Strawberry Shortcake
Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour; ½ cup milk; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 1 tablespoon sugar (optional); fresh strawberries; butter (for spreading); cream or beaten egg white (for serving)

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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake the cake

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, milk, melted butter, and sugar until smooth.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.
While the cake is baking, prepare the strawberries by mixing them with a small amount of butter and sugar.

Assemble and serve

Once the cake is baked, split it in half and spread butter on each layer.
Add the prepared strawberries and top with cream or beaten egg white.
Serve the cake with the strawberry filling.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, tender batter.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor, and keeps the cake tender.
Fresh strawberries: Provide the fruity flavor and juicy topping for the shortcake.

“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.