Name: Strawberry Shortcakes
Ingredients: 1 cup powdered sugar; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 eggs; 1 rounded cup prepared flour; 1 tablespoon cream; 1 quart strawberries

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 Shortcakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

Cream together the butter and powdered sugar.
Whip in the beaten egg yolks.
Fold in the flour.
Bake in three jelly cake pans.
Let the cakes cool.

Assemble and serve

Cut the strawberries in half.
Layer the strawberries between the cakes, sprinkling with sugar.
Sift sugar on the top layer.
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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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: Yolks add richness and help bind and lighten the batter.
Butter: Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and flavor to the cake.
Prepared flour: Its starch provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Strawberries: Add fresh fruit flavor, moisture and sweetness between the layers.