Name: Strawberry Shortcake
Ingredients: 3 cups sifted Graham flour; 3 cups white flour; 2 cups sweet cream; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; 4 to 6 quarts strawberries; sugar (to taste)

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. 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.

Prepare the shortcake

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the Graham flour, white flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Add the sweet cream and mix until combined.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

Prepare the strawberries

Wash the strawberries in a colander an hour before serving.
If the strawberries are not perfectly ripe, sprinkle a little sugar over them to release their juice.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Graham flour and white flour: Form the structure of the shortcake as the flour proteins set during baking.
Sweet cream: Adds fat and moisture, giving the shortcake a tender, rich crumb.
Baking soda and cream of tartar: React together to produce gas that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
Strawberries: Provide the fresh fruit flavour and juice that soaks into the shortcake.
Sugar: Sweetens the strawberries and draws out their juice when added to less ripe fruit.

The step that matters

Mixing in the sweet cream. Mixing only until combined keeps the batter tender, because overworking the flour develops gluten and makes the shortcake tough.

“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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Strawberry Shortcake