No. 3262

Strawberry Short Cake

Gateau aux Fraises

Place in a basin six ounces of butter with ten ounces of sugar; beat both well together until a creamy preparation is obtained, then add three eggs, one at a time, two gills of milk and vanilla flavoring. After the whole has been well mixed pour in a pound of sifted flour into which has been added a coffeespoonful of baking powder. Have some round flat molds seven and a half inches in diameter and the edges raised to three-eighths of an inch high; butter and flour these over, then fill them to the top with the mixture and bake in a brisk oven. Unmold on a grate as soon as they are done and leave stand till cold; cover each one of these layers of cake with a vanilla pastry cream (No. 46), and on it arrange very fine, ripe strawberries, one next to the other; bestrew with sugar and lay two of these garnished cakes one on top of the other; put on a dish and cover the cake with sweetened whipped cream (No. 50), flavored with vanilla and pushed through a pocket.

← No. 3261 St. Honore and St. Honore Sultana Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3263 Favart Cake →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's shortcake is a butter cake, not a biscuit, and the whole assembly depends on the two cross-referenced creams. Read those numbers before starting.

Gills and milkA gill is half a cup, so two gills is one cup of milk.
A pound of flourA pound of sifted all-purpose flour is roughly 3 1/2 to 4 cups. Weigh it if you can, since scooping will overshoot and give a dry, tight crumb.
Coffeespoonful of baking powderA coffeespoon is generally reckoned smaller than a modern teaspoon, though the term was not standardised. Either way it is very little lift for a pound of flour. Two teaspoons will give a cake closer to modern expectations, but it will no longer be his cake.
Brisk ovenBrisk is usually glossed at somewhere around 400-425F, though the book gives no temperatures. The layers are shallow, so watch them from 15 minutes; they are done when the centre springs back and the edge pulls from the mold.
The moldsSeven and a half inches across with a rim only three-eighths of an inch high means a very thin layer, close to a modern tart pan or a rimmed pizza pan. Two 8-inch round cake pans work, filled shallow; expect the batter to make more than two thin layers, so bake in batches or accept thicker ones and longer time.
The two cross-referencesNo. 46 is his vanilla pastry cream and No. 50 his sweetened whipped cream. Both are needed: pastry cream between the layers to hold the fruit, whipped cream piped over the top. Chill the pastry cream fully before spreading or it will soak the cake.
Assemble lateSugar drawn over cut or whole berries pulls juice within the hour. Build the cake no more than an hour or two before it goes to table, and keep it cold.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield; two garnished 7 1/2-inch layers would serve roughly eight as an entremets course.

A Little History

By the time Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894), drawing on decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, strawberry shortcake was already a fixed American summer institution — but the household version was a split sweet biscuit, buttered and heaped with crushed berries. What Ranhofer gives instead is a gateau aux fraises: a French butter cake in thin layers, mortared with pastry cream, tiled with whole berries set side by side, and finished with piped whipped cream. The dish sits in his chapter of large cakes for entremets, the sweet course served before dessert proper in a formal menu, and the translation of an American name onto a Parisian construction is characteristic of the book as a whole. The English title is a concession to his customers; everything under it is restaurant pastry work.