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Dessert

Strawberry Short-cake

A baked strawberry cake with a stiff dough, bruised strawberries, and powdered sugar dusting.

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 ↓

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 berries

  1. Wash strawberries under a gentle stream of water, then drain and place them in a bowl.

  2. Bruise the strawberries with a potato masher and cover them with a thick layer of white sugar. Set aside.

Make and bake the shortcake

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, butter, beaten egg, baking powder, and enough milk to form a stiff dough.

  2. Knead the dough well and roll it out to about 1 inch thick.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown, then remove from the pan.

  4. Cut the cake lengthwise and crosswise, allowing steam to escape to preserve the color of the berries.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the bottom crust on a platter and cover it with the bruised strawberries, about 1.5 inches deep.

  2. Lay the top crust over the strawberries, dust with powdered sugar, and pour any remaining berry juice around the cake.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so the shortcake holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and contributes to browning.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shortcake rises and turns light.
Fresh strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and juicy moisture between the layers.
White sugar
Sweetens the berries and draws out their juice as they sit.

The step that matters

Cut the cake while it is still warm and let steam escape. Trapped steam can make the crumb soggy and dull the berry colour, so letting it vent helps the cake stay light and the fruit bright.

“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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