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Dessert

Canned Apricot Shortcake

A shortcake made with flour, baking powder, salt, milk, shortening, egg yolk, and topped with canned apricots and optional syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Canned Apricot 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 dough

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

  2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Work in the shortening until well combined.

  4. Beat the egg yolk and add the milk.

  5. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients to form a soft dough, adding more milk if needed.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden.

  2. Once baked, split the cake and butter both sides generously.

  3. Cover one half with warmed apricots, then place the other half on top.

  4. Cover the top with more apricots and pour syrup over the entire cake.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with whipped 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 once the dough is baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the shortcake rise and become light.
Shortening
Coats the flour particles, giving the shortcake a tender, crumbly texture.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dough together.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough comes together and stays moist.
Apricots (in the method)
Provide fruit flavour and moisture between the shortcake layers.

The step that matters

Working the dough. Mixing the wet and dry ingredients only until a soft dough forms keeps the shortcake tender. Overworking develops gluten, which makes it tough and dense.

“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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