Happy Valentine’s Day: Strawberry Shortcake Edition
Our favorite Valentine’s Day treat is Strawberry Shortcake.
I like to make the shortcake from scratch. It has great crumbly, buttery texture and is warm from the oven. For those of you who feel ambitious and inspired, here’s the recipe I use from my old stalwart battle-ax: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook:
Shortcake
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
5 Tbsp butter
2/3 cup milk
Berries, slightly sweetened
Heavy cream (whipped)
Preheat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC). Butter and lightly flour an 8 inch cake pan or a cookie sheet. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl. Cut the butter in bits and work it into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or your fingers until it resembles coarse meal. Slowly stir in the milk, using just enough to hold the dough together. Turn onto a floured board and knead for a minute or two. Pat the dough into the cake pan, or roll and pat it 3/4 inch thick and cut it into eight 2-inch rounds, using a biscuit cutter. Arrange the rounds on a cookie sheet and bake them for 10-12 minutes, or the larger cake for 12-15 minutes. Split with two forks while still warm, butter, fill with sugared fruit or berries, and serve warm with whipped cream.
The large disc shortcake makes a dramatic appearance on a table (you split the entire cake, butter its insides, heap on the berries, and add whipped cream on top). Cutting and serving it is less artful of an impression for the individual dish, but as long as everyone beheld the original masterpiece, a bit of a mess is forgiven.
I’ve enjoyed creating the smaller, individual biscuit-size shortcakes when serving my family. The kids love seeing their own miniature cake look exotic and particularly whipped cream-special just for them. So we usually use the biscuit cutter version of the shortcake for our family strawberry shortcake parties. The photo is from 2007, and is of one of our small biscuit shortcakes.
This is my Valentine’s Day gift to you! Hope you have a wonderful day.
