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Dessert

Huckleberry Short-cake

A baked cake made with flour, baking powder, salt, fat, butter, eggs, milk, huckleberries, and sugar.

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 ↓

Huckleberry Short-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift baking powder and salt into the flour.

  2. Chop in cottolene and butter until well combined.

  3. Beat the eggs until light, then add to the sweet milk.

  4. Make a well in the flour mixture, pour in the milk and egg mixture, and mix with a wooden spoon.

  5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll into two sheets, about ⅓ inch thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a greased baking pan with one sheet of dough.

  2. Cover with huckleberries and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

  3. Place the second sheet of dough on top and bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Serve

  1. Cut into squares, split, and serve with butter and sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough, setting as it bakes around the berries.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and turns light.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough while adding structure as they set.
Cottolene and butter
Fat that coats flour particles, tenderizing the crumb and adding richness.
Huckleberries
Provide moisture, tartness and flavor between the dough layers.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough sheets to an even thickness. Dough that is too thick will bake unevenly and stay doughy in the center, while uneven sheets cook at different rates. Even sheets bake through at the same time.

“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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