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Dessert

Strawberry Short-Cake

A cake made with flour, butter, milk, and strawberries, baked and served topped with sweetened strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Strawberry Short-Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the shortcake

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

  2. Sift the flour and mix it with cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sugar.

  3. Rub the butter into the dry mixture until crumbly.

  4. Add the milk and mix until combined.

  5. Butter two pie plates and spread the mixture evenly in them.

  6. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until golden.

Prepare the strawberries and serve

  1. Mash the strawberries and mix with ¾ cup sugar.

  2. Serve the short cake topped with the sweetened strawberries.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 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 shortcake as it bakes.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and a rich texture.
Milk
Moistens the dry mixture so it forms a soft dough.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the shortcake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the shortcake.
Strawberries
Provide fruity flavour and juice that sweetens and softens the topping.

The step that matters

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until golden. Baking long enough sets the structure and browns the surface; underbaking leaves the centre gummy, while overbaking dries it out and makes it crumbly.

“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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