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 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
Dissolve the baking soda in hot water.
In a bowl, mix flour, butter, sour cream or milk, egg, white sugar, and salt.
Roll out the dough rather thin.
Assemble and bake
Place in shallow baking pans.
Cover thickly with ripe strawberries and sugar.
Add a layer of dough on top and bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.
Serve
Cut into small squares and serve hot with sugar and cream.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 main structure of the dough as its proteins and starches set when baked.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the dough tender and rich as it bakes.
- Sour cream or milk
- Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour into a workable dough.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in sour cream to produce gas that helps the dough rise.
- Strawberries
- Provide juicy fruit and natural sweetness that soak into the baked layers.
The step that matters
Roll out the dough rather thin. Thin dough bakes through evenly and gives a tender, biscuit-like layer. Thick dough can stay doughy in the middle while the outside over-browns.
“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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