All. From. Scratch.
Press "play" and leave it going as you continue reading.
If you start crying uncontrollably from the anticipation, I understand.
This is genuine old-fashioned strawberry shortcake. This is the strawberry shortcake your great-grandparents made and ate. Forget angel food cake. Forget pound cake. By god, we're making shortcake!
I should mention here that "shortcake" is like a biscuit. It's hardly sweet, if at all. "Shortbread" is a cookie. They should be reversed, but that's how it is.
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE TIME!
Ingredients:
Shortcake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup milk
1 tbsp baking powder (or 2 tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp. cream of tartar)
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, chopped into pats or chunks and chilled until hard
Strawberries:
1 qt. strawberries (I used 17 large strawberries, or about two and a half or three of those green pint baskets that strawberries come in)
1/3 cup sugar
Whipped cream:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
Firstly, cut all your strawberries in half. Get a big bowl, shallow and wide is better than deep and tall, and put in half the strawberries. Sprinkle with half the sugar. Then put in the rest of the strawberries and sprinkle them with the rest of the sugar. Cover it and set it aside to sit at room temperature for two hours. If you're using this recipe when strawberries are out of season, let them sit overnight in the fridge.
The easiest way to wash strawberries is in a colander.
For really big strawberries, cut into multiple slices.
Strawberry massacre.
What have I done?!
Preheat your oven to 425° F. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir it really well. Add the cold butter. You need to cut the butter into the flour so that it's all mixed up with tiny butter bits that aren't melted. You can do this a few ways. One is to use a pastry blender, which I happened to have.
I'm not sure how I "just happened" to have this thing in the kitchen.
Another is to use two knives and literally cut the butter into the flour. You can also use a fork, but this is more difficult. You can also use your hands by lightly - and quickly - rubbing the butter and flour together lightly with your fingers.
Tiny lumps of butter throughout.
Make a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the milk. I'm not sure why you do this, but it's how this is done, so do it. Then mix it all up until just moist. There won't be any powdery flour, but it will be very lumpy and little sticky.
Are there any hidden pockets of flour? Will we ever know?
Butter and flour an 8-inch cake pan. PRO TIP: if you have parchment paper, trace a circle on some using the cake pan as a template and cut it out. Put it on the bottom of the cake pan. This will make sure the center of the shortcake doesn't stick and tear off the rest of the cake when you tip it out of the pan. This shouldn't happen if you make sure the butter and flour covers the entire inside of the pan, but there's always a chance.
Cake pan with parchment paper on the bottom and plenty of special baking spray.
Now that I've filled your head with images of your shortcake breaking as it comes out of the pan, turn the dough out into the pan and pat it all the way to the edge with your fingers.
Bland, lumpy and dense - and yet so much more.
Stick it in the oven for 10-15 minutes. I wish I could give you a better estimate of time, but I originally set the oven temperature way too low, so my baking time was weird. After 10-15 minutes, the shortcake should have risen a bit and the top should be golden brown. Insert a toothpick into the center; if it comes out doughy, lower the temperature to 350° F and bake another 5 minutes. If it's still doughy after that, god help you.
It will look and smell like a giant biscuit, because that's what it is.
Put a plate upside-down on top of the cake pan and shortcake, and flip it all over so that the shortcake is face-down on the plate. This will allow it to cool a little faster.
Stop staring at its backside.
Now make the whipped cream!
Brimming with potential.
Pour the heavy whipping cream into a large bowl and get out your electric mixer. If you don't have one, use a whisk and prepare to spend the next half-hour (or more) developing a repeated-motion injury. Use a whisk attachment on your mixer if you have one. If you don't, the regular beaters will do fine. Whip the cream at a high speed. If you used a smaller bowl, little flecks of cream will fly all over the place, speckling your kitchen like a winter wonderland. The cream will froth, then get sort of thick, and then it will turn into whipped cream. You know it's ready when you lift the mixer (or whisk) and the cream stands in soft, curled peaks.
Just before it gets to this point, when the whipped cream peak slowly droop over back into the cream, add the 2 tbsp of sugar (and the vanilla, if you want - I wanted a bland whipped cream, so I left it out). Continue whipping (or beating, or whisking) until it gets to the soft-peaks stage. Stick it in the fridge until you're ready to use it.
You might want to roll in it. This is natural, but try to restrain yourself.
Back to the shortcake. Take another plate and flip the shortcake so it's right-side-up again.
Guest appearance by my dad's books and my fish's house.
With a bread knife, or a long, serrated knife, carefully cut it in half from its side.
It will be so crumbly, you'll want to cry in terror and frustration.
Use the plate-flip method and a spatula or a big knife to flip only the top half over.
You may lose a little chunk here or there.
It's time to use those strawberries! Use about 3/4 or a bit more of them to make a nice, thick layer of sugary strawberries on the first layer of shortcake.
Do not be alarmed. Everyone is happy when strawberry shortcake is about to happen.
Resist the urge to eat it now. RESIST!
Using the plate-flip method, but with your hand as the plate this time, flip the top layer onto your hand and gently slide onto the strawberry layer.
It's like a strawberry sandwich.
Put the remaining strawberries on top and pour on the delicious syrup that has collected at the bottom of the bowl.
You're almost there!
Scream at someone to get the whipped cream!
You can put the whipped cream on this magnificent beast of a dessert, but I chose instead to put whipped cream on the individual servings. Carefully cut slices out - it will fall apart as soon as you set it on your plate, but that's okay. Dollop whipped cream on top
I...I feel faint.
This is too much tasty to handle.
This will fill you up, and desserts usually don't do that to me. The shortcake is fluffy and crumbly, the strawberries are sweet and the whipped cream is light and airy. I highly recommend having a glass of milk to hand.
Though I know the word "epic" is overused, it applies to this dessert.
Happy cooking!
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