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Dessert

Sweet Strawberry Shortcake

A layered cake of buttered batter with strawberries and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Strawberry 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. Beat the butter and 1 cup of sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs, well beaten, and mix until combined.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then stir into the mixture until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into deep tin plates and bake until golden.

Prepare the filling

  1. While the cake is baking, mix the strawberries with ½ cup of sugar.

  2. Once the cake is baked, spread the strawberry mixture between the layers.

Finish with meringue

  1. Make a meringue by beating the egg white and adding 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar, then spread it over the top layer of 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and the strawberries, and helps the cake turn golden.
Strawberries
Add moisture, acidity and fresh fruit flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the batter only until smooth. Once flour is mixed in, overworking the batter develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense rather than soft. Stop as soon as the batter is smooth. Measure the baking powder carefully too, since too much can make the cake rise and then collapse.

“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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