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Strawberry Shortcake
The simpler the form of the "cake" the more delicious will be the result, although many people prefer a sponge or cup cake with the berries. For a plain shortcake make a sweet biscuit dough (see Introductory Recipes), rolling out an inch thick, cutting in diamonds or squares or rounds, and baking like biscuits. These may be readily broken open (never cut) and the mashed berries sweetened (together with some whole ones) mixed and heaped upon them for individual serving. Or the dough may be rolled thinner, spread with butter, folding over once and baking in either one sheet or individual form, the butter facilitating the opening of the cake. Or single, inch-thick sheets may be made and heaped in layers, using the crushed berries for filling, the whole ones for the top. Another form of shortcake is to add to the biscuit dough two well-beaten eggs. Whipped cream may be heaped over the whole berries used on the top of any form of the cake.
This is a method rather than a fixed formula: the author assumes you already have a sweet biscuit dough from the book's introductory pages and gives you four ways to shape it. A few things need translating.
- The missing dough"Sweet biscuit dough (see Introductory Recipes)" points to a recipe not reproduced on this page, so its exact proportions are unknown. A standard sweet baking-powder biscuit dough will behave as the author expects: roughly 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/4 cup butter or shortening rubbed in, and about 3/4 cup milk.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives no temperature, only "baking like biscuits." A hot oven, 425-450F, is the usual modern equivalent; an inch-thick round takes 12-15 minutes, a full sheet nearer 20.
- Break, never cutThis is the instruction that matters. A knife compresses and smears the crumb, so the juice sits on a sealed surface instead of soaking in. Pull the biscuit apart with your thumbs along its natural seam.
- The butter trickThe folded version — dough rolled thinner, buttered, folded once — exists for one reason: the butter layer keeps the halves from knitting together in the oven, so the cake opens cleanly even if the crumb is tender. The recipe says as much, "the butter facilitating the opening of the cake."
- Sweetening the berriesThe recipe gives no quantity. For "mashed berries sweetened," about 2 tablespoons sugar per pint of hulled berries, crushed and left to stand 20-30 minutes to give up their juice, suits it. Reserve some of the fruit whole for the top, as the recipe indicates, though it sets no proportion.
- The egg versionTwo beaten eggs added to the biscuit dough will need less milk to compensate, or the dough turns slack. The result is closer to a rich scone than a shortcake and browns faster.
- CreamThe recipe says only "whipped cream" and gives no sweetening. Since the berries are already sugared, heavy cream whipped to soft peaks and left unsweetened or barely sweetened works best, but that is a choice, not an instruction in the text.
- Yield and timingThe suggested quantities above would give roughly 6 to 8 individual cakes, or one 8-inch layered cake. Assemble at the last moment; biscuit dough softens quickly once the juice reaches it.
Strawberry shortcake as Americans built it depends on the chemical leaven that made a quick biscuit dough possible in a home kitchen — pearlash and saleratus early in the nineteenth century, then commercial baking powder from the 1860s on — which is why the dish spread through American cookbooks in the second half of that century, and why "shortcake" in Britain means something quite different, closer to the shortbread more usually associated with Scotland. The insistence here on a plain biscuit rather than sponge or cup cake is a preference the recipe itself acknowledges is not universal, noting that "many people prefer a sponge or cup cake."