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Dessert

Ideal Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake made with flour, milk, yeast, shortening, strawberries, egg whites, powdered sugar, and cream.

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

Ideal Strawberry Shortcake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, milk, yeast powder, and shortening to form a soft paste.

  3. Roll out the dough and bake in two layers until done.

Assemble and bake

  1. Remove the top layer and butter the lower layer.

  2. Spread sugared strawberries on the lower layer, then place the top layer back on.

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding powdered sugar, and spread over the top layer.

  4. Return to the oven and brown nicely.

Serve

  1. Serve with 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so the layers hold their shape when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the crumb soft.
Strawberries
Provide sweetness and fruity moisture between the layers.
Milk
Moistens the dough and helps bind it into a paste.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks; under-whipped whites will deflate and weep, and powdered sugar added gradually helps keep the foam stable while it bakes and browns.

“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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