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Strawberry Shortcake
3 cupfuls flour 1/2 cupful Crisco 1/2 teaspoonful salt 3 teaspoonfuls baking powder 1 egg 2 tablespoonfuls sugar 1 cupful milk 1 1/2 pints strawberries 1 cupful whipped cream Sift the flour with the baking powder, salt and sugar, then cut in the Crisco with a knife, add egg well beaten, and milk. The dough should be a soft one. Roll in two layers, spread in two Criscoed pans and bake in a hot oven until a light brown color. Mash and sweeten one cupful of the strawberries, put on one layer, then place second layer on top. Sweeten remainder of strawberries, spread on top layer, and cover with the whipped cream. Decorate with whole ripe strawberries.
A biscuit-style shortcake of the kind that dominated American cookbooks before sponge cake took over. The dough is essentially a sweetened baking-powder biscuit, and it behaves like one.
- Handle the dough as little as possibleThis is the hinge. Cut the fat in until it is the size of peas, add the liquid all at once, and pat or roll each layer just enough to fit the pan. Kneading or re-rolling develops gluten and gives a tough, bready shortcake rather than a flaky one.
- "Hot oven"425-450F. Two thin layers in 8- or 9-inch round pans will be light brown in 12 to 15 minutes; they burn on the bottom quickly past that.
- CriscoThe book was published to promote it, and the shortening of the period is generally said to have been firmer than today's product. Modern Crisco works as written; the same measure of cold butter or lard gives more flavour and better flake, with slightly less tenderness.
- "Criscoed pans"Simply greased. A light film of shortening or butter is enough for this dough, which is fairly rich; no flour dusting or parchment is needed.
- Cupfuls and spoonfulsLevel measures, as in modern American practice. Three cups of flour is about 13 oz / 375 g; if the dough seems stiff rather than soft, add milk a tablespoon at a time.
- 1 1/2 pints strawberriesRoughly 1 lb, or about 3 cups hulled and sliced. Reserve the best-looking dozen berries whole for the top before you crush the rest.
- Sweetening the fruitNo quantity is given. Two to three tablespoons of sugar per cup of berries, left to stand 20 minutes, draws out enough juice to soak the bottom layer without making it collapse.
- Assemble warm, serve at onceFill and top the two layers while still warm from the oven. Biscuit shortcake stales within hours, and cream-covered layers will not keep overnight.
- YieldSix to eight servings from two 8- or 9-inch layers.
Strawberry shortcake in the American sense is a biscuit dish, not a cake one: through the nineteenth century the "shortcake" was a rich chemically leavened dough (soda and sour milk earlier, baking powder once it became common after mid-century), split and layered with crushed sweetened fruit, and the sponge-cake and store-bought sponge-cup versions came later. Its appearance here reflects the book's purpose as much as the season. A Calendar of Dinners was issued by Procter & Gamble to promote Crisco, introduced in 1911, and the recipes routinely specify the shortening by name and even verb it -- "Criscoed pans." Butter and lard had done this job for generations; the branded cookbook was the industry's way of arguing that a vegetable shortening could do it too, in a familiar dish no reader would need convincing to want.