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.
Ripe seasonal strawberries are the basis for any good strawberry shortcake. Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
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.
Once the berries are sweetened, the shortcake is baked, and the cream is whipped, it’s time to eat! Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
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.
Homemade Strawberry Shortcake – the perfect old-fashioned summer dessert. Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
Do you look forward to old-fashioned strawberry shortcake each summer?
This post was first published in 2012 and has been updated.
Aimee Tucker is Yankee’s senior digital editor. A lifelong New Englander and Yankee contributor since 2010, Aimee has written columns devoted to history, foliage, retro food, and architecture, and regularly shares her experiences in New England travel, home, and gardening. Her most memorable Yankee experiences to date include meeting Stephen King, singing along to a James Taylor Fourth of July concert at Tanglewood, and taking to the skies in the Hood blimp for an open-air tour of the Massachusetts coastline.
Great book.awesome recipes.
Strawberry Shortcake was my mother’s favorite dessert! This “old-fashioned” recipe is exactly the way she prepared hers – so good.