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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A baked cake with buttered crusts layered with sliced strawberries and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Strawberry Short-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and butter until crumbly.

Shape

  1. Divide the dough in half.

  2. Roll each half to fit a biscuit or pie tin.

  3. Spread soft butter on the bottom crust.

  4. Place the top crust on it.

  5. Repeat with the second half of the dough.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven.

  2. Cut each shortcake apart where the butter was spread.

  3. Butter each crust generously.

  4. Place the bottom on a plate.

  5. Top with prepared strawberries and any remaining juice.

Serve

  1. Serve with a pitcher of sweet 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Fat that tenderizes the crumb and adds richness and browning.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.
Strawberries
Add sweet-tart flavor and juicy moisture over the baked shortcake.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a cooling, creamy contrast to the fruit and crust.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven. Golden color signals that the crust has browned and dried enough. Underbaked dough stays gummy in the middle, while overbaked dough turns dry and 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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