Strawberry Shortcake

What better way to celebrate summer than with a delicious homemade Strawberry Shortcake?  I absolutely love a fresh crumbly scone layered up with strawberry jam, fresh cream, and fresh strawberries.

Strawberry Shortcake is a classic American dessert as well as an annoyingly twee little pink cartoon character, search online and you will see what I mean.  I did a little research online and it soon became obvious that ‘shortcake’, in this context, is simply a sweet scone.  So if you can make scones, you can make Strawberry Shortcake!

 TOP TIPS FOR BAKING SCONES:

• Rubbing the fat into the flour is best done by hand, but if I have a large batch to make I do use my stand mixer or sometimes a food processor.
• Never add the liquid in the mixer or food processor (unless you are really expert) as this is likely to overwork the dough, add it slowly and bring together the dough first with a knife and then with your hands.
• Never knead the dough, just bring it together pressing a little until it’s smooth.
• There’s no need to roll out the dough, just pat it down.
• The height of the uncooked dough should be about half what you want for your finished scone, so cut them thick.
• Never twist your cutter when cutting out the scone, it stops it from rising properly.
• Make sure your oven is really hot before putting the scones in to bake.

Strawberry Shortcake Recipe

Strawberry Shortcake

A sweet scone type shortcake filled with strawberry jam, sliced strawberries and cream.

0 from 0 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: British

Keyword: scones, shortcake, strawberries

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 4

Author: Janice Pattie

Ingredients

• For the Shortcake
• 225 g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 50 g soft butter
• 25 g caster superfine sugar
• 1 egg
• milk
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• For the filling
• 2 tbsp strawberry jam
• 12 strawberries
• 150 ml double heavy cream whipped (or 100g clotted cream)

Metric - US Customary units

Instructions

For the shortcake

• Heat the oven to 220C
• Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl, add the butter and chop it into the flour, then rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, until it looks like breadcrumbs, add the caster sugar.
• Crack the egg into a jug or other measure and beat with a fork, add milk up to 150ml.
• Gradually add this mixture to the flour bringing the liquid and flour together into a soft dough, you may need a little less or a little more depending on your flour.
• Pat the dough out to about 1.25cm (1/2 inch)
• Cut into rounds with an 85 mm (3 1/4 in) cutter and place on the baking tray
• Brush the tops of the scones with milk, or the milk/egg mix if you have any left.
• Sprinkle with granulated sugar
• Bake for about 10 minutes until the scones are pale golden brown.
• Remove from the baking sheet and cool on a wire rack.

To assemble

• Take one cooled scone per person
• Split the scones in half
• Spread strawberry jam on the base of the scones and place on the serving plate
• Top with a spoonful of whipped or clotted cream
• Set aside 4 of the best strawberries (preferably quite small) for the top of the shortcake
• Slice 8 of the strawberries and sprinkle with a teaspoon of caster sugar and 1/4 tsp lemon juice
• Divide the strawberry slices between the four scones
• Place the top of the scone over the strawberries
• Add a small spoonful of cream and top with a small whole strawberry.

Notes

If you don't have time to make scones, you can always buy some good quality scones and layer them up with jam, cream and strawberries.

You could, of course, make one single large Strawberry Shortcake.  For this, you would make two larger circles, use a small plate as a template, leave one circle whole and cut the other into wedges, once baked these will sit on top of the strawberries and cream.

Here are some other strawberry dessert ideas you might like to try:

Raw Strawberry Coconut Macaroons – Planet Veggie

Sensational Strawberry Pavlova – Farmersgirl Kitchen

Strawberry Mousse – Farmersgirl Kitchen

Vegetarian Strawberry Blancmange – Tin & Thyme

Strawberry and Dark Chocolate Ice Cream Cake – Simply Food

And one last look at the Strawberry Shortcake…