Strawberry shortcakes
It is time. Today. Go get yourself at least one pint of local strawberries. Don’t go to Superfresh. Go to a farmer’s market. Go to Reading Terminal Market and hit up the Amish or Fair Food. Yes, they cost more. If there is one form of produce worth the outlay to get fresh and local, it is berries. They do not ripen after picking, but they are fragile (read: do not ship well cross-country) when ripe. You will taste the difference.
Now, I will share with you the most important lesson I learned from my french exchange host family. There is no such thing as a strawberry too sweet and ripe to sugar. I learned to embrace the indulgence. Just add a teaspoon or so, to really bring out the flavor. Slice them up, sugar them, and eat in 5 minutes. You will eat the whole bowl.
Repeat. After you have done this 3 or 4 times, you may be ready to move on to the strawberry shortcake recipe below. You may not. That’s ok. It is perfectly fine to worship strawberries in their primal form first and foremost. But this recipe is pretty good, too.
Strawberry Shortcake
- a half batch of biscuits (add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the dry ingredients when making)
- 1 pint strawberries
- 1/2 pint heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon of sugar (plus more for the berries)
Make your biscuits (you can use this recipe, but any basic biscuit recipe will make a tasty shortcake.) When you’ve put the biscuits in the oven, slice your strawberries, removing the stems. Sprinkle the berries with a teaspoon of sugar, or more to taste. Set aside.
When the biscuits come out, set them aside to cool for a bit (or they will melt the whipped cream.) When they are warm, but not hot, make whipped cream.
If you aren’t already the sort to make whipped cream fresh, I strongly encourage you to try it. It’s faster than this description makes it sound, and it is worlds better than store bought. If I were going to cheat making strawberry shortcakes, I would definitely use Pillsbury poppin’ can biscuits before I used canned whipped cream.
I have been informed that some people have the capability to whip cream by hand, but you will want to use a mixer. I have also been told there are many schools of thought about how one should progress through the speeds when mixing, but I have never noticed a difference in my cream, so I’ll just tell you the fast way. Start with your heavy cream in a large clean bowl. Take the mixer through the speeds until you are at the second-fastest speed. Whip the cream until it starts to hold slight shapes. Then, mix in your tablespoon of sugar (and a splash of vanilla extract, if you want.)
Continue mixing until the cream holds in peaks. At this point, if you like a soft, slightly runny whipped cream, it’s done. If you want dollops that sit firmly where you put them, turn the mixer down a notch, and keep going until it gets to the consistency you like. Aren’t sure? Stop the mixer, and taste a swipe!
Usually, for cakes and sundaes and other very sweet things, I barely sugar my whipped cream (maybe a teaspoon of sugar.) For strawberry shortcakes, though, the biscuit is savory(ish. buttery, at least.) The strawberries are tart. So, the cream should definitely be sweet on the tongue. Again, if you aren’t sure, taste it! You’re just whipping air into the cream, so the sweetness won’t really change much in the whipping process.
Put it all together, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in yum.
