Strawberry Shortcake
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup shortening
¾ cup milk
Directions
Preheat oven to 450°F. In large bowl with fork, mix flour, baking powder and salt. With pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add milk and with fork, mix just until mixture forms soft dough that leaves side of bowl.
Turn onto lightly floured surface; knead 6 to 8 strokes to mix dough thoroughtly.
Roll out the dough, ½ inch thick for high, fluffy biscuits, ¼ inch thick if you are making thin, crusty ones.
With floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut biscuits, using straight downward motion. Do not twist the cutter.
Place biscuits on ungreased cookie sheet, 1 inch apart for crusty biscuits, nearly touching for soft-sided ones.
Press dough trimmings together (don’t knead); reroll and cut until all dough is used. Bake 12 to 15 minutes until golden.
Reference
“The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook”My Comments
Thanks for Herre’s demonstration! Colin and Herre agree that the biscuit and the whipped cream should not be too sweet.
I found out that shortcake is basically just biscuit with some toppings.
We used ¼ cup of butter instead of shortening and also added 1 tablespoon of sugar to the biscuits.
For the topping, we used fresh strawberries hulled, sliced, and mixed with some sugar and whipping cream beaten together with 1 tablespoon of sugar.
We used a coffee cup instead of a cookie cutter.