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Dessert

Apricot Short Cake

A simple cake made with flour, butter, egg, water, and mashed apricots, topped with sugar.

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 ↓

Apricot Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

  3. Rub in the butter until crumbly.

  4. Beat the egg until light, then add cold water.

  5. Stir the egg mixture into the flour mixture.

  6. Spread the batter in two well-greased shallow pans.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle sugar on top and bake for 10-15 minutes.

  2. Once baked, spread butter on top and layer with mashed apricots.

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. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the shortcake as its proteins and starch set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to make a tender, crumbly texture, and spread on top after baking for richness.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the batter and helps bind it together.
Apricots
Add fruity sweetness and moisture to the layers.

The step that matters

Rub in the butter until crumbly. Butter should stay in small cold pieces coated with flour. As it melts in the oven it creates layers and a tender, flaky crumb, so overworking it into a smooth dough makes the shortcake dense.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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