Strawberry Shortcake

It's strawberry season here in Ontario and oh my goodness, do you know what that means?

Yup, it means it's time to start making fresh strawberry shortcake whenever possible! YUM!

On Dishes and Dust Bunnies, I often talk about how much the food and desserts of my childhood influence the recipes and creations I share with you.  This recipe for classic strawberry shortcake is definitely inspired by the tasty ones my grandmother used to make.

I remember excitedly rushing to pick fresh strawberries straight from the garden at my grandmother's house to use in her tasty shortcakes. I'd carry my little basket and get right to work. 🙂

When it was dinner time, my grandfather would return back to the house after a long day of splitting wood fire wood or from his other duties as a farmer. I still remember how happy Papa was when Grammie would surprize him with freshly made strawberry shortcake after dinner.

It was the perfect reward for a day of hard work on the farm! 😀

Do you have a special memory involving strawberry shortcake? Let me know in the comments section at the end of this post – I'd love to hear about it! 😀

I'm pleased to say the version of strawberry shortcake in this post reminds me quite a bit of what my grandmother so lovingly made for the family all those years.

So, in the spirit of surprise strawberry shortcakes, I made this for my husband Tom for Father's Day and he loved it! 😀

You may or may not be able to tell from the pictures, but when I made these it was one heck of a scorcher of a hot day!

My whipped cream became a little melty as I was taking the photos for this BUT I think that adds to some of the homemade charm. 🙂

Can we just take a moment to appreciate those homemade shortcake layers?

OMG – they're flaky, moist and perfectly sweet!

I'd describe the shortcakes as being the delicious babies of a flaky biscuit and a shortbread cookie. Sounds good, eh?

I hope you enjoy this recipe and please let me know how they turned out for you in the comments section below the recipe – I'd love to hear from you!  

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Strawberry Shortcake

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• Author: Michelle Varga - DishesAndDustBunnies.com
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 18 mins
• Total Time: 33 minutes
• Yield: 6 Shortcakes 1x

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Ingredients

• 16 oz fresh strawberries, washed, stems removed and sliced
• 2 cups whipped cream (My homemade whipped cream recipe is coming soon!)
• Optional: Some decorative coarse sugar to sprinkle on top
  For the shortcakes:
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour PLUS extra for rolling out the dough
• 3 tsps baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter, cut up
• 3/4 cup milk

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Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Combine dry shortcake ingredients in a medium mixing bowl using a whisk.
3. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or 2 forks. The butter and dry ingredients should start to combine and be about pea sized. You can use your hands to break apart the butter but try not to over mix.
4. Gradually add the milk to the mixture and combine with your hands or a wooden spoon to form a dough. The dough is supposed to be crumbly so don't over mix.
5. For best results, at this point, after the dough has come together I chill it in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
6. Take the dough from the fridge and drop it onto a floured surface. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough.
7. Roll the dough out into the shape of a rectangle about ½” thick. Sprinkle with a little flour.
8. Fold the square of dough in half and roll it out to about ½” thick again.
9. Fold over one last time and roll out to ½” thick. Sprinkle with a little flour.
10. Using a square cookie cutter (I used a 3.5″ cutter) with ruffled edges, cut out the shortcake and place them onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Leave at least 1″ of space around each one.
11. Bake for about 15-18 minutes or until tops are slightly golden.
12. Optional – Brush melted butter over the tops of the biscuits once they come out of the oven.
13. Allow shortcakes to cool on a wire rack before assembling the shortcakes.
    To assemble the shortcakes:
14. Onto a plate place one of the shortcake layers.
15. On top of this, place slices of fresh strawberries and top with whipped cream.
16. Place the 2nd layer of shortcake on top. Add sliced strawberries and top with whipped cream.
17. Optional: Sprinkle with coarse decorative sugar for a nice sparkly presentation. 🙂

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Notes

Regarding the sliced strawberries: Depending on your personal preferences, you may want to sprinkle the strawberries with some sugar before assembling the shortcakes. My family prefers to have the strawberries plain, but if you have more of a sweet tooth, you can add some sugar. If you'd like to do this, I'd recommend using 1/4-1/2 cup of sugar for the 16 oz of strawberries in the recipe – you can of course adjust this to your tastes. Combine the strawberry slices with the sugar in a mixing bowl and allow them to soak it in for a few minutes before assembling the shortcakes.

Regarding the shortcakes: The method for making the shortcakes is similar to making biscuits. If you'd like a flaky texture for your shortcakes, make sure that your butter stays as cold as possible when working with the dough. When you roll out the dough, try to work with the rolling pin quickly so the butter doesn't melt into the dough too much. The cold butter layers will make little pockets of steam in the shortcakes as they bake which is what creates flakiness. 🙂

• Category: Dessert