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You don’t need to be a pastry chef to make Strawberry Shortcake Recipe from scratch, just a love of luscious summer berries and a little biscuit know-how. This recipe shows you the steps, all the way down to the freshly whipped cream.
Sometimes strawberry season can come and go so fast, that it’s easy to miss the luscious red berries at the roadside stands and farmers markets. If you’ve been lucky enough to pick your own, the best thing to do with them is serve them with lots of whipped cream and cake–in this case, shortcake.
How to make Biscuits for Strawberry Shortcake:
Shortcake refers to a rich baked product using shortening or fat. With these beauties, you use heavy cream to get the fluffiest, flakiest, easiest biscuit ever! No cutting in butter or rolling required. Read all about it in How to Make Biscuits.
This biscuit tutorial is for the visual learners. For specific amounts and units, as well as an option to change the quantity of the recipe, please have a look at the recipe at the bottom of the page.
They come together fast, so preheat the oven to 450 degrees while you make the biscuit dough.
Get the dry ingredients together in a bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a little well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the heavy cream. Stir the cream until combined—it will look shaggy.
Then turn out the dough onto a floured work surface. Knead just long enough to pull the dough together, about 30 seconds. If you’re having trouble, add another teaspoon of cream.
Next, shape the dough into a round or rectangle that’s 3/4” high. Using a sharp knife or biscuit cutter dipped in flour, cut out your shapes, pressing the remaining dough scraps together to continue cutting out biscuits.
Then place each biscuit on a baking sheet. (If you like your biscuits a little on the sweeter side, sprinkle the raw dough with a pinch of granulated sugar before popping them in the oven.) Bake for 15 minutes, rotating halfway through cooking, until the biscuits are golden brown.
If you want to bake these a little later, you can cover the sheet in plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator for up to 2 hours.
How to make the Strawberries:
By all means, if other berries are calling your name, use raspberries, blueberries, or blackberries in addition to—or instead of—strawberries.
Not everyone has easy access to fresh-from-the-patch berries, so here’s how to make even basic grocery store strawberries (any summer berry, really) taste fabulous, every time: sugar and a pinch of salt.
Slice up the berries and add some sugar, and a pinch of salt. The sugar gets the berries juices flowing, creating a lovely strawberry syrup, while the tiny amount of salt amps up the flavor just a notch.
The fruit can be prepared up to 24 hours in advance.
How to make whipped cream:
Once you whip cream at home, you’ll probably never go back to the stuff in the can. If you like your whipped cream unsweetened and completely unadulterated, just whip the heavy cream as is. Otherwise, a little sugar and vanilla never hurt anybody….It’s broken down for you in How to Make Whipped Cream.
Whipping cream works best when the bowl and beaters are chilled and icy cold, fresh from the freezer.
In a chilled bowl, combine cream, sugar, and vanilla (this is optional) and beat using the whisk attachment for your mixer until soft peaks form (3 to 4 minutes) or firm peaks form (6 to 8 minutes). Be careful not to over beat, or you’ll have something that is closer to butter than cream.
You can keep the whipped cream cold in the refrigerator until you need it.
Finally! Assembling the dessert:
Once cool, break a biscuit open, horizontally, so there’s a top and a bottom. Place the bottom of the biscuit on the plate, then top the bottom with a spoonful or two of the macerated strawberries.
Add a big dollop of whipped cream, then cover with the top of the freshly baked, made from scratch biscuit. Hooray! Three cheers for a Strawberry Shortcake recipe that’s easy to make!
Other fun Strawberry Shortcake recipe ideas:
In you’re not in a biscuit mood, don’t let that stop you from making this classic dessert recipe. Here are some other ways to enjoy strawberries and cream:
Angel food cake. Bake a Strawberry Jello Poke Cake and watch out for flying forks!
Strawberry shortcake with pound cake. Easy Pound Cake is sliceable and wonderful when served with berries and cream.
Old fashioned milk cake. Hot Milk Cake is a gentle, old-fashioned cake that’s begging to be made just for an impromptu strawberry shortcake.
Strawberry shortcake cupcakes. Plain vanilla cupcakes can be split in half and enjoyed shortcake-style, if you’re craving a fluffier cake.
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Strawberry Shortcake
Ingredients
For the strawberries:
- 1 pound strawberries hulled and chopped
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar or to taste (see note 1)
- 1 pinch Salt
For the biscuits:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (15 ounces)
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream plus more as needed
For the whipped cream:
- 1 cup heavy cream cold (see note 2)
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract optional
Instructions
To make the strawberries:
- In a medium bowl (at least 2 cups), combine strawberries, sugar, and salt and stir well. Cover and refrigerate while preparing the biscuits (may be done up to 24 hours in advance).
- (This is a great time to put your metal mixing bowl and whisk attachment in the freezer to chill for the whipped cream).
To make the biscuits:
- Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in large bowl. Stir in cream until combined, about 30 seconds.
- Turn out dough onto lightly floured counter, gather into ball, and knead briefly until smooth, about 30 seconds. If dough is too crumbly, add an additional teaspoon of heavy cream to get smooth dough (I added 1 extra teaspoon of cream).
- Shape dough into 3/4-inch-thick round. Dip a 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter in flour and cut out biscuits, recombining scraps as needed to yield 6 biscuits. Place rounds on prepared baking sheet. (Baking sheet with biscuits can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 2 hours.)
- Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. Transfer to wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes.
To make the whipped cream:
- For best results, chill metal mixing bowl and whisk attachment in freezer for 10 to 15 minutes if you haven't already done so.
- In chilled mixing bowl, combine cream, sugar, and vanilla (if using) and beat until soft peaks form, about 3 to 4 minutes, or until stiff peaks form, about 6 to 8 minutes (depending on your preference).
- Whipped cream can be stored covered, in the refrigerator, for up to 10 hours.
To assemble the shortcakes:
- Split each biscuit in half and place bottom half on a plate. Top with ¼ cup strawberries and a heaping ¼ cup whipped cream each. Top with remaining biscuit halves.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Sugar: After repeated trials, I've landed on 2 teaspoons of sweetener as the sweet spot for the homemade biscuits for this shortcake recipe. You'll also want to have about ¼ handy to macerate the strawberries; start with 2 tablespoons tossed with the berries and salt, then add more to taste.
- Heavy cream: You'll need 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons for the biscuit dough, plus 1 cup very cold cream to whip for the topping.
- Yield: My classic Strawberry Shortcake recipe makes 6 whipped cream-and-berry-stuffed biscuits.
- Storage: Store leftover biscuits at room temperature for up to 4 days. Store leftover berries and whipped cream separately in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Make ahead: Get a head start on the strawberry mixture by stirring it together up to 24 hours and refrigerating until assembly time. Feel free to mix and cut the biscuits, transfer to a sheet pan, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for up to 2 hours before baking. The whipped cream can be whipped and stored in the refrigerator up to 10 hours in advance.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.
Measurement for cream in the biscuits is incorrect. It should be 1 1/8 cups. Otherwise the recipe great!
Hi Seth, thank you for pointing that out I am fixing it now! Sorry about that! -Meggan