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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A layered cake made with flour, butter, lard, milk, strawberries, sugar, and cream, topped with powdered sugar.

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 Short-cake

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 flour, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Cut in the butter and lard until crumbly.

  4. Stir in the sweet milk until a dough forms.

  5. Roll the dough thin.

Bake and split

  1. Bake the dough in pie plates until golden.

  2. Split the cakes while hot.

  3. Butter the cakes well.

Make the strawberry filling

  1. Mash the strawberries with the sugar.

  2. Mix in the thick cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place one buttered cake side up on a large plate.

  2. Cover the cake with strawberries.

  3. Add another buttered cake on top.

  4. Repeat layering until all layers are stacked.

  5. Finish with the crust side up.

  6. Dot the top with whole strawberries.

  7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so the cakes hold their shape when split.
Butter and lard
Fat cut into the flour creates a crumbly, tender texture in the baked cakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and stay light.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to bind the dough and add moisture to the cakes.
Strawberries
Provide fruity acidity and moisture that soften the cakes between layers.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat that makes the strawberry filling smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Cut in the butter and lard until crumbly. Fat must stay in distinct pieces coated with flour rather than melting or over-mixing. This separation creates flaky, tender layers, while overworking develops gluten and makes the cakes tough.

“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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