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Dessert

Strawberry Shortcake

A baked cake made with flour, lard, butter, egg, milk, baking powder, and sweetened strawberries, served with cream.

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 Shortcake

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 the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the baking powder and salt into the flour.

  3. Rub in the butter and lard until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Beat the egg in a teacup and fill the cup with milk, then add this to the flour mixture to make a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough in two parts, roll each thin, and spread with soft butter.

  2. Place the two layers together and bake until golden.

Fill and serve

  1. When done, split open and fill with sweetened strawberries.

  2. Serve with 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 once hydrated and baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the layers tender and rich in flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that shortens gluten, giving the biscuit a crumbly texture.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough and add structure.
Sweetened strawberries
Provide sweetness and fruity acidity that contrast with the rich dough.

The step that matters

Rub in the butter and lard until coarse crumbs form. Fat coated onto flour particles limits gluten formation. Overworking or melting the fat makes the dough tough instead of tender and flaky.

“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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