When spring arrives, we all get a taste for a good strawberry or mixed berry dessert, usually served over shortcakes and sometimes with vanilla ice-cream and/or whipped cream. While the combination seems simple and delicious, this classic American dessert is often plagued by flavorless or sour berries and tough biscuit-like cakes. I'm solving those two issues so you have the perfect summer dessert, which is still simple to make. Today I'm using strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Any one or a combination will work.
The berries are the easiest to rescue with either a berry puree or by using some melted strawberry jam. If you have truly great berries (eat a couple to find out), they will need just a little sugar. For the biscuits you may think the answer is substituting with a sponge cake. But a sponge cake is a complicated process, the easiest of which is the angel food cake, and even that's not simple or quick. The solution to the tough shortcake is simply the addition of egg into the dough, which makes it more cake like than the typical dense biscuit or shortcake.
Ingredients (Serves 6-8 adults)
Berries
3 pints fresh hulled strawberries
or any combination of berries
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons strawberry jam
Shortcakes
2 cups bleached all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface and biscuit cutter
½ teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter (8 tablespoons), frozen
1 egg, beaten
½ cup half-and-half
1 tablespoon half-and-half
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons course sugar for sprinkling
Toppings (optional)
Prepared sweetened whipped cream
Vanilla ice-cream
Instructions
Berries: You can crush and cook 1 cup of the berries with 1 tablespoon sugar until they reach a jam-like consistency. Alternatively, you can keep all of the berries whole, and melt strawberry jam over low heat until it is a more syrup-like consistency, which is what I typically do. Remove from heat and cool slightly. In a bowl with your fresh, cleaned berries, toss with granulated sugar. Then pour the slightly warm crushed berry or jam mixture over the fresh berries and stir to combine. Set aside for 2 hours, stirring 2-3 times to assist the berries in macerating. Refrigerate if using later but do allow berries to return to room temperature before serving for best flavor.
Shortcakes: Adjust oven rack to lower middle position; heat oven to 425F degrees or 400F is using the convection bake setting.
Using large holes of a box grater, grate frozen butter or cut very finely with a knife. Refreeze the butter for 15 minutes while you mix flour, salt, baking powder, and 3 tablespoons sugar in medium bowl.
Add the frozen butter bits to the flour mixture and toss butter with flour to coat. Use pastry cutter to finish cutting butter into flour or pulse the mixture in a food processor until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal flecked with pea-sized bits of butter (6-8 quick pulses in the food processor).
Mix beaten egg with half-and-half. With the flour/butter mixture in a large bowl, add the egg mixture. Toss with fork or rubber spatula until large clumps of dough form. Turn mixture out onto a floured work surface and quickly push together and knead slightly until it forms a single mass. Do not overwork the dough to avoid melting the bits of butter.
Drop vs. Cut: Most traditionally berry shortcakes are served with a cut shortcake. This simply means you turn out the dough, pat down and cut it into the desired cake size using a biscuit cutter or a glass. Alternatively, you can scoop the dough out onto the prepared baking tray and simply pat it down a little. That's what I've done in the photo above, which gives you a more rounded biscuit. But when you're in a hurry it works just fine.
To make the classic cut biscuit shapes, pat dough into a round circle approximately 3/4 inch thick. Flour a 2 3/4-inch biscuit cutter (or similar sized glass) and cut 6 dough rounds. Using your hands, bring together the dough scraps and repeat the cutting process to get one or two more rounds. These shortcakes will be a little tougher and less attractive than those from the first cutting.
Place 1 inch apart on small parchment-lined baking sheet.
Brush dough tops with egg white and sprinkle with remaining sugar. (Can be covered and refrigerated up to 2 hours before baking.) Bake until golden brown, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from oven and place baking sheet on a trivet and let cool for 10 minutes. Remove cakes to a wire rack to finish cooling. Cakes can be used when mostly cool or stored in an air-tight container for 2-3 days.
Serving: Split each shortcake crosswise and place in a serving bowl. Spoon a portion of berries and optional ice-cream over the bottom section in the serving bowl. Top with optional whipped cream. Cap with cake top; serve immediately.
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