Skip to main content
Dessert

Peach Short Cake

A short cake made with flour, butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, milk, salt, vanilla, and peaches, served warm with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Cut in butter with a spatula.

  3. Beat the egg lightly and add it to the sweet milk.

  4. Pour the milk mixture and vanilla into the flour mixture and stir briskly.

  5. Roll the dough out on a floured board to a thickness of ½ inch.

  6. Knead as little as possible before rolling.

  7. Cut into shapes larger than biscuits.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes.

  2. When cakes are lightly browned, remove from the oven and split them.

  3. Add a little butter to the lower half and lay slices of peaches on the cake.

  4. Place the top of the cake on this and spread another generous spoonful of peaches on top.

  5. Serve warm with whipped 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.

  1. Vanilla + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 shortcake as its starch and protein set in the oven.
Butter
Cut into the flour to add tenderness and richness through short, flaky layers.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough and set its structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcakes rise and turn light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps it come together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Knead as little as possible before rolling. Working gluten in wheat flour makes the dough tough. Minimal handling keeps the shortcakes tender and light.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, cream. 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipes