Why You’ll Love It
- It boasts the best, easiest biscuits. The drop biscuits used in this recipe let you skip the kneading, cutting, and re-rolling often found in shortcake recipes. Instead, you’ll stir together the dough with a fork and your fingers, then scoop mounds onto a baking sheet—taking all of five minutes.
- It makes smart use of your ingredients. Lemon zest flavors the biscuits, while the juice is used to macerate the strawberries and balances their natural sweetness. Heavy cream is used for whipped cream and stirred into the biscuit dough to make them ultra-tender. Granulated sugar draws the juices out of the strawberries, and sweetens the biscuits and cream.
What’s the Best ‘Shortcake’ for Strawberry Shortcake?
“Short” is an English word meaning to make crisp with fat (such as butter or lard). While shortcakes these days take on many forms—from those yellow sponge-y store-bought rounds to fluffy cake-like layers—I prefer crisp and buttery biscuit-like shortcakes (which, it seems, may be the most traditional too).Make-Ahead Tips
- Macerate the strawberries ahead: Macerated strawberries can be covered and refrigerated up to 24 hours before serving. The longer they sit, the more their flavors will concentrate and intensify. They’ll also get softer and release more juices, so you may want to use a slotted spoon to scoop the berries onto the biscuits to avoid a soggy shortcake.
- Make the dough ahead: You can make the dough a day in advance and store in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to bake.
- Make the whipped cream ahead: You can make whipped cream a day in advance too—you may want to briefly re-whisk before assembling.
Strawberry Shortcake
Serves 8- 2 pounds strawberries, rinsed, stems removed, and quartered
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- Juice of 1 medium lemon (2 to 3 tablespoons)—zest the lemon first, and reserve the zest for the biscuits
- Finely grated zest of 1 lemon (about 1 tablespoon)
- 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, divided
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 8 tablespoon (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1 1/4 cups cold heavy cream
- 1 1/2 cups cold heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and heat oven to 400 degrees. Place 1 tablespoon lemon zest and 1/4 cup of the sugar in a large bowl. Rub between your fingertips until the sugar is aromatic.
3. Add 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt and stir with a fork.
4. Add 8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (cut into pieces) and use your fingers to rub the butter into the flour mixture until it forms pea-sized pieces.
5. Drizzle in 1 1/4 cups cold heavy cream and mix with a fork until combined. (Dough will be sticky.)
6. Form the dough into 8 large, tall mounds using a large spoon or ice cream scoop and space 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet (the taller the mounds of dough, the easier they will be to slice in half). Sprinkle the top of the biscuits with remaining 1 teaspoon sugar.
7. Bake until the bottoms of the biscuits are deeply golden and the tops are lightly brown, 15 to 20 minutes.
8. Combine 1 1/2 cups cold heavy cream and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on medium-high speed just until stiff peaks form (do not overwhip), about 90 seconds. (Alternatively, use a large bowl and an electric hand mixer.)
9. Split the biscuits in half crosswise. Spoon strawberries over the bottom half and top with a dollop of whipped cream. Finish with the top biscuit.
