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Dessert

Strawberry Short Cake

A baked cake with buttered layers, strawberries, and powdered sugar, served hot with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately 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 the flour, salt, granulated sugar, and baking powder into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter or lard until well combined.

  3. Beat the egg yolk and stir in the milk, then add this mixture to the flour.

  4. Mix thoroughly and add more milk if needed.

  5. Place the dough in a greased baking pan and smooth the top.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. Remove from the oven and split the cake with a hot knife.

  3. Spread each half thickly with butter.

  4. Layer strawberries on the bottom half and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  5. Place the top half over the strawberries, pile more berries on top, and dust with powdered sugar.

  6. Serve hot with plenty of rich 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. Milk + buttertop 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 main structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Butter or lard
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and stays light.
Strawberries
Add fresh fruit moisture and tart flavour between the cake layers.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the dough. Add milk gradually and mix only until combined. Too much liquid or overmixing makes the dough sticky and the cake dense, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly.

“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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