Strawberry Shortcakes

By Andrea Maunder

The first mention of “shortcakes” is in an English cookbook from 1588, but we can thank our neighbours in the northeast US, for that glorious combination of sweet strawberries, fluffy whipped cream and tender biscuits we now know as Strawberry Shortcakes. The dessert became popular in the early 1900s as a way to celebrate the first ripe berries of the season. It’s become a classic – and for good reason. Perfectly executed, it’s sublime.

Visually stunning, it’s a dessert that lights faces with joy – and then the enticing aroma compels us to dig in. The toasty buttery biscuit, floral vanilla cream, and that heady, intoxicating magic of sugared strawberries.

Although a simple dessert – and perhaps because it’s so simple, the components are important to get right. I’ll share secrets for getting a perfectly-textured biscuit; lightly-sweet cream is easy; but the magic is in the maceration of the sliced berries with sugar. Different from marination (where we soak food in flavoured liquid to impart flavour and potentially tenderize), in this case, we toss the strawberries with sugar and a pinch of salt to draw out the natural juices, soften the berries slightly, and create an amazing syrupy juice that’s spooned over the biscuits and cream. Allowing the berries and sugar to sit together is a kind of alchemy that results in incredibly complex aromas – imagine the sun hitting a patch of super-ripe strawberries, and the scent of a rose bush in the wind, while you hold a cone of cotton candy.

Right about now, when the weather is chilly, and nights are long and dark, Strawberry Shortcakes are the perfect gift to yourself (and those you love) to bring a little sunshine. Ideal for Valentine’s Day dessert – or how about indulging for weekend breakfast?

Strawberry Shortcakes – makes 8

First, macerate your berries:
1½ quarts strawberries (about a pound). Reserve 8 nice smallish ones for garnish – leave green stems on.
½ cup sugar
Pinch of salt

Remove stems from the berries and slice them longwise (they look like hearts!). Place in a bowl and toss with the sugar and salt. Set aside while you make the biscuits. Refrigerate if you’re making ahead to serve later today. For the garnish berries: lay each berry on its side on a cutting board, holding the green stem end. Holding a paring knife so the tip is pointing at the stem end, make four or five slices from tip to stem, not cutting all the way through the stem. Then turn the berry 90 degrees and press down lightly, fanning out the slices. Set aside.

Now make the biscuits:
2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
Pinch salt
1/3 cup cold butter (not margarine) cut into ½ inch cubes
Up to ¾ cup of cold milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Extra sugar for glazing tops

Preheat oven to 400F convection (or 425 regular oven)
I do the dry part in the food processor, whizzing the dry ingredients to blend and then pulsing the cold butter into the dry ingredients to reduce them to a small pea texture. Then I transfer the dry mix to a mixing bowl to add the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon, so I can control the texture. This can be done by hand, too: place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk to blend. Add cold butter and cut in with a pastry blender or fork, until the butter is the size of small peas. Either way, the next step is the same: add vanilla to the milk and start with ½ cup only to bring the mixture together. Add milk if needed. Should be wetter than drier, and coming together into a shaggy ball. Do NOT knead. Dump onto a very lightly floured counter or board. Pat down to 1 inch thick or so. Fold in all edges towards the middle to create the flaky layers. Then pat out again to about 1½ inches thick. Cut with a 3-inch pastry cutter into eight rounds or squares. (gather and press dough scraps together as needed, to complete all the biscuits.) Place on a parchment-lined baking pan. Brush with the remaining milk-vanilla mixture and sprinkle generously with sugar. Bake 12-15 minutes until risen and golden. Pressing gently on the middle of the biscuit will let you know if it is baked through. It should bounce back instead of staying squished down. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Crème Chantilly – whipped cream:
2 cups cold whipping cream – 35%
¼ cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch salt

Place everything in a mixing bowl of stand mixer. Begin whipping with a whisk attachment at medium speed (so it doesn’t splash). Increase speed as the cream thickens. Be sure to stop it once thick. If you keep going, it turns into butter.

To assemble, slice each biscuit in half laterally. Put a little dab of cream on the plate and anchor the bottom half of the biscuit. Top with a little dollop of cream, add a generous spoon of berries with juice, and top with another small spoon of cream to give the biscuit top something to stick to. Place the top of the biscuit on top. Place a little dollop of cream and one whole fanned strawberry on top. Add another dollop of cream to the plate if you like. Stop for just a second to inhale the gorgeous aromas, then go ahead and devour.

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