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Dessert

French Strawberry Short-cake

A light cake made with egg, sugar, butter, milk, baking powder, flour, strawberries, and beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

French Strawberry Short-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg, sugar, butter, milk, and baking powder.

  3. Add flour until the dough is stiff.

  4. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and place it in a deep cake tin.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Once baked, fill the cake with whole, well-sweetened strawberries.

  3. Top with the beaten egg white, sweetened like frosting.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure to the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the dough rises and becomes light.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so it holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the dough.
Egg white
Whipped and sweetened, it forms a light, stable topping.

The step that matters

Add flour until the dough is stiff. Too little flour leaves the dough slack and it may spread or bake dense, while too much makes it tough and dry. Stopping when the dough is stiff gives a sturdy base that holds the strawberries.

“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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