You’ll love this Easy Shortcake Recipe
This dessert requires a lot of steps but stay with me–I promise the reward of a slightly sweet biscuit topped with cream and juicystrawberries is more than worth it. The biscuits can be made ahead of time, and the strawberries can be left to macerate for several hours.
What is Strawberry Shortcake?
Strawberry shortcake is the best way to eat strawberries! It features a savory biscuit topped with sweetened, marinated fresh strawberries and sweet whipped cream on top. If you’ve never had real strawberry shortcake before, you might be surprised to learn that the biscuits aren’t sweet. The beauty of this dessert is the fluffy, soft biscuit soaked in sweet cream and sweet berries. The round hockey-puck looking things you sometimes see at the grocery store labeled for strawberry shortcake are made of cake. Those are soft, floppy and overly sweet. Don’t buy them, trust me. Real strawberry shortcake is made with biscuits. The contrast of craggy, almost salty biscuit and sweet cream and berries is superior.
Strawberry Shortcake Ingredients
Flour. All-purpose, regular white flour. Do not use self-raising flour, because we’re adding leaveners to it. Salt. Just a ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt. Baking Soda. One and a quarter teaspoons of baking soda. Make sure it’s fresh and not expired. If you put a small amount in a glass with vinegar, it should be fizzy! Baking Powder. Aluminum-free baking powder, please. Butter. Half a stick of unsalted butter that is still cold from the fridge. Buttermilk. We’ll start with a half-cup of low-fat buttermilk, but we might add an extra teaspoon or two, depending on how dry the mixture is in the bowl. I really recommend store-bought buttermilk, not making your own or using the powder.
Easy Strawberry Shortcake Recipe Variations
Berries - You can use any other type of berry, or a mix of berries here. Cream - If you want to use coconut cream instead of whipped cream, that is delicious too!
Homemade Strawberry Shortcake Filling
The filling in this strawberry shortcake recipe is where things get really good. Freshly whipped cream and strawberries marinated in sugar with a touch of lemon juice in vanilla is absolutely addicting. This is not the time for whipped cream from a can or a tub–use the real deal here! There’s something amazing about the combination of lemon and vanilla with a sweet, seasonal strawberry. I hope you know that seasonal strawberries are the only things to use–this recipe just won’t taste as good in the winter with less sweet strawberries! If you’re craving your strawberry shortcake recipe badly during the winter, I would use frozen strawberries. It’s true that frozen strawberries are usually frozen at peak ripeness, and taste better than hard strawberries that have been picked too early and shipped from too far away.
How to make Strawberry Shortcake
How to make Shortcake Biscuits
Easy Strawberry Shortcake Recipe Tips:
Resist the urge to add extra buttermilk if the mixture seems dry. Too much liquid makes a flat biscuit. Knead gently, not too much. Use the cookie cutter gently: direct down and directly up. Do not twist it in the dough. Use the freshest, ripest strawberries you can find. Keep the whipping cream very cold before whipping so that it can become the fluffiest.
How to Serve Homemade Strawberry Shortcake
This is a bit controversial, but I like my biscuits stale for strawberry shortcake! So, I make them the day before, and let them rest on the counter (covered) overnight. Then, I marinate the strawberries at least 8 hours before serving. The lemon juice and sugar makes them perfectly sweet and sour here. I whip the cream ahead of time, too, and then store it in the fridge so that it’s extra cold. Then, assembly is easy: slice the biscuit in half, top with strawberries, whipped cream, and the other half of the biscuit. I hope you love this strawberry shortcake recipe! Feel free to scale it up to serve more people!
