Strawberry season is here

To celebrate, I made homemade shortcakes. I used Alton Brown’s recipe from I’m Just Here for More Food.

I have mentioned more than once that I don’t have a clean up crew. So, I am not about to drag out the food processor just to take my dry ingredients for a whirl like AB does. And besides, Shirley Corriher says it is okay to just whisk them together with a fork, so I am all over that action.

This, however, is a very neat trick Mr. Brown has come up with. Instead of laboring with a fork or a pastry blender, use frozen butter and grate it into the dry mixture. Brilliant! After the grating, it’s just a super quick mix by hand incorporate the ingredients.

Next, you make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet stuff. Alton’s recipe calls for heavy cream, but I only had light cream, and you know I’m not afraid to substitute.

I turned the dough out and formed it into a fairly gooey ball,

and then divided it into eight even-ish pieces.

I formed each piece into a ball and then flattened them into discs and baked them in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

They came out lovely and golden. Meanwhile, I had sliced up a bunch of strawberries from our garden, added a little sugar, and let them sit in the fridge for a few hours releasing their juices.

At go time, I sliced each biscuit in half. My husband is a purist, but I wanted to “kick it up a notch” as they say, and I put a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream on mine.

For his, I skipped the ice cream and just layered on strawberries and some extra whipped cream.

I put the other half of the biscuit on, added more strawberries,

And then of course, more whipped cream. It’s the classic spring dessert, and now’s the time to enjoy the berries at their peak. If you don’t have them growing in your yard, get to the farm stand now while the getting is good.
Shortcake recipe after the jump…

Shortcake
2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons frozen butter
3/4 cup light cream
1 egg, lightly beaten
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and whisk with a fork. Grate the butter and mix with your hands into the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and add the cream and egg. Mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula just until combined.
Turn out of the bowl and form into a ball. Divide the ball in half, then in fourths and in eighths. Form each piece into a small ball, and then flatten into discs about 1/2 inch thick.
Place on an ungreased baking sheet about 1 inch apart and bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Place on a rack to cool.

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