The REAL Strawberry Shortcake-meed

Mmmm-kay, all my life when we had strawberry shortcake it was your traditional strawberries soaked in sugar poured over the store bought little yellow cakes with a dip in the middle to hold the strawberries. Maybe you have seen them they come like 6 or 8 to a pack. Its actually a sponge cake or angel food cake or something like that

I was talking to a co-worker one day about how Trovan doesn’t like the extra syrup that the berries in sugar makes. She said, "That is why you use shortcakes." I told her I do, but that yellow cake type bread gets all soggy. She said "not those, you use REAL shortcakes."

What?!? My whole life I have been duped? After some talking with her about what real shortcake is I was a little pissed I had gone my whole life never really having strawberry shortcake. You see I was raised a small town on the outskirts of VA Beach called Pungo. Every year Pungo had a Strawberry Festival. It was a big deal. There were rides, shows, and a parade in which I participated in the marching band. 7-11 stores even made a special Slurpee with strawberries in it.

So with a little searching I found and made real shortcakes. Holy smokes! They are soooo good. Plus Trovan likes the extra syrup now. Here is the recipe.

1 quart strawberries, hulled and quartered
1/4 cup sugar plus 3 tablespoons sugar, plus 8 teaspoons
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
2/3 cup half-and-half, plus 1/4 cup
Sweetened whipped cream
Fresh mint sprigs, for garnish
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a medium mixing bowl, toss the strawberries and 1/4 cup sugar together. Set aside until time to serve.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together flour, baking powder, salt and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Then pulse in the cold butter cubes until a coarse meal is formed. Turn the flour mixture out into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Pour in 2/3 cup half-and-half and gently mix it in with a rubber spatula or fork, be careful not to over mix the dough or the biscuits will be tough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and fold it over itself a couple of times until it just holds together. Pat the dough out to 3/4-inch thickness and cut out 8 round 3-inch biscuits.

Transfer the biscuits to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Brush the tops of each biscuit with the remaining half-and-half and sprinkle each with 1 teaspoon sugar (I like to use the really large sugar sprinkles here almost like ground up rock candy). Bake in a preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until the biscuits have risen and are a light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Split each biscuit, spoon some strawberries on the bottom piece, then whipped cream and top with the other biscuit half. Garnish with fresh mint and more strawberries.