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Dessert

Individual Strawberry Shortcakes with Whipped Cream

A baked shortcake topped with sliced strawberries and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Individual Strawberry Shortcakes with Whipped Cream

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 strawberries

  1. Slice the strawberries.

  2. Mix sliced strawberries with sugar.

  3. Let the mixture sit to release juices.

Make and bake the shortcakes

  1. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Stir in milk until just combined. Do not overmix.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto a baking sheet.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Assemble

  1. Whip heavy cream until soft peaks form.

  2. Split the baked shortcakes.

  3. Add strawberries and whipped cream between layers.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Strawberries
Provide fruit flavor and juice that softens the dessert when macerated with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and draws out their juices.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the shortcake together as it bakes.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create tender, flaky layers as it melts in the oven.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough that bakes into a tender crumb.
Heavy cream
Whipped to add richness and a light, airy topping.

The step that matters

Stir in milk until just combined. Do not overmix.. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, making the shortcakes tough instead of tender. Stop mixing as soon as the dough comes together.

“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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