Tuesday 15 October 2013

Strawberry Short Cake

An easy crowd pleasing favorite!  This is a simple recipe handed down from my nana that combines a good light extra sweet biscuit, with fresh whipping cream and fresh sliced strawberries. All considered to be Nova Scotian delicacies. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Ingredients:


  • 3 Cups Flour
  • 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
  • 4 Tablespoon Sugar
  • 1 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1/2 Cup room temperature Butter
  • 1/4 Cup Vegetable Shortening
  • 1 Cup Milk
  • Whipped Cream
  • About 2 Cups fresh sliced Strawberries, divided into 1 1/2 cup and 1/2 cup portions
  • 1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
  • 3 Teaspoons Brown Sugar or Honey
  • Icing sugar to garnish


Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 450°F
  2. In a large bowl or your stand mixer(whisk attachment) measure out the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, butter, and shortening and mix together until it looks like fine grains of sand and appears evenly mixed. 
  3. Stop the stand mixer or whatever mixing method you are using once this consistancy is reached. I left it all unattended in the stand mixer once like a fool and things go very wrong. It will all clump back together and the biscuits simply will not be as good a texture. 
  4. Remove bowl from the stand mixer and create a small well in the center of the bowl, pour all the milk in at once and using your hands mix until flour and milk are just combined. 
  5. You'll likely get this wrong the first time and have tough biscuits. That is ok, getting the technique down for mixing the dough is where I always went wrong too. As I also mentioned over mixing leads to tough biscuits so be careful of that since you still need to roll the dough out. 
  6. Once again, really seriously just mixed is what we want. 
  7. On a floured surface gently turn and roll the dough out to be about 1 inch thick and use a biscuit cutter (or a clean empty can cut in half works well) to cut out the biscuits. 
  8. Place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 10-14 minutes or till just golden. 
  9. Check after 10 minutes regardless on the bottom of a biscuit near the center, if it is getting too dark adjust and finish baking the biscuits on a higher rack. Cool on baking racks for about 15 minutes.
  10. In the meantime, prepare the whipped cream according to the recipe, and prepare a smashed strawberry sauce, in the next step.
  11. To make the sauce take the 1/2 cup portion of the sliced strawberries and put them in a small pot with the lemon juice and sugar/honey.
  12. Heat over medium heat while mashing with a potato masher. 
  13. It will be a lumpy sauce, but heat until it bubbles slightly and remove from heat. 
  14. Set aside. You can use a hand blender to get a smoother finished sauce.
  15. To assemble the Short Cakes take a biscuit one at a time, slice in half, and place on a small serving plate.
  16.  Place several strawberry slices on the bottom layer, drop a dollop of whipped cream on top, followed by the smashed strawberry sauce and replace the top layer of the biscuit.
  17.  Dust the top with icing sugar and serve!

Enjoy!

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Have any thoughts? Questions? Comments? Or did you try this?