Homemade Strawberry Shortcake – the perfect old-fashioned summer dessert.
Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
It’s June again, and in New England that only means one thing — juicy, ripe strawberries and plates of strawberry shortcake at strawberry festivals and dinner tables from Maine to Connecticut. A few years ago I made my first batch of old-fashioned Summer Strawberry Shortcake but this time around I wanted to go the old-fashioned strawberry shortcake route by shaping the shortcake into one large cake rather than individual ones.
This recipe for Old-Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake is the real deal. Let’s start with a quart of fresh, seasonal strawberries.
After slicing and sugaring the berries, I got to work on the shortcake. It’s made pretty much made the same way as scones (adding cold butter and milk into a dough made from flour, sugar, baking powder, and a pinch of salt), but instead of cutting the dough into individual portions I lightly pressed it into a greased pie pan.
While it baked I whipped the cream. Again — canned whip cream is easier, but if you take an extra few minutes to whip your own cream with a little sugar and vanilla extract, you’ll be handsomely rewarded.
I cut a wedge of shortcake, split it, and topped it with the sweetened berries and whipped cream. Now THIS is what summer is supposed to taste like! Make a batch while the berries are ripe and I promise you won’t regret it.
Do you look forward to old-fashioned strawberry shortcake each summer?
This post was first published in 2012 and has been updated.
As Digital Editor of New England.com, Aimee writes, manages, and promotes content for NewEngland.com and its social media channels. Before this role, she served as assistant, then associate, editor for Yankee Magazine and YankeeMagazine.com, where she was nominated for a City and Regional Magazine Association award for Best Blog. A lifelong New Englander, Aimee loves history, the New Hampshire seacoast, and a good Massachusetts South Shore bar pizza.