Strawberry Shortcake

I’m just not cool enough to go so long between posts.  If I was a blogebrity and went a month without blogging, maybe there would be people faithfully checking in every day, begging me to come back because, Oh!  Their dinner plans depend on me!  But no.  Definitely not that cool.  Have you even missed me?  I don’t know.  But hey, I’ve missed me, so here goes.

First off, where have I been, you ask?  The answer is vacation (heavenly), power outage (not so much), guests (fun), aaaannd….lazy.  Yep.  At least I’m honest.

Vacation was great.  We did, in fact, go wherever we wanted and do whatever we wanted and stay out as late as we wanted (which was, sadly, really not that late) and make as much noise as we wanted and sleep without the constant hum of a baby monitor and get a tan and eat our own food.  We did a LOT of eating – two mega buffets and several other restaurants and 32 dollars worth of gourmet candy, which, I admit, maybe my eyes were a little bigger than my stomach on that one.  Considering about 60% of it is still sitting in the kitchen, growing chocolate mold and calling my name right now, actually, be right back.

I haven’t cooked much of note since we got back, sadly.  I’ve made a lot of recipes that I’ve already posted (this, this, this, and this [which I would like to say, tastes sooo good and my picture is sooo gross.  I've gotta get on that.]).  We’ve went out to eat several times due to the steaming hot heat in our powerless, heat-wave-stricken house.  But most importantly (and most excusably, I think), I’ve also had a lot of Saltine crackers for dinner – because we have another bun in the oven!

A rather large-seeming bun, I might add.

People, it is summer.  Suh-mer.  And it's hot.  At least here in Virginia, where 80 degrees would feel cool and you can’t stand to be outside between the hours of 7 in the morning to 10 at night, I don’t want to eat a lot of heavy, sticky deserts.  I DO want to eat a lot of homemade strawberry short-cake.  And now that I’ve had it once, I will never buy a store-bought angel food cake ever, ever again.  Neither will you.

Strawberry Short Cake

Adapted slightly from Bride & Groom Cookbook by Pirie and Clark
Note: I halved this recipe, but I now have no idea why.

For the strawberries

• 3 cups ripe strawberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup orange juice

For the shortcakes

• 2 cups flour
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 5 Tbsp cold butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 1 cup plus 1 Tbsp heavy cream, divided

For the whipped cream

• Do this.  Do NOT do what I did and cop out and use cool whip because you're too tired and lazy to make homemade whipped cream.  It will be way too sweet and it will disappoint you.  

Rinse, dry, stem, and quarter the strawberries.  Put them in a bowl, sprinkle them with sugar and pour on the orange juice. Let chill for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Drain when finished.

For the shortcakes, combine dry ingredients in a bowl with a fork.  Using a fork, clean fingers, or a pastry knife, work the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter is broken down into fairly even pieces, the largest being about the size of a pea.  Pour in the cup of cream, then mix with a spoon or electric mixer just until the dough starts to come together.  The dough will be sticky in spots.  On a floured, cool work surface, dust the dough with flour and roll into a rectangle about 5 by 8 inches and about 1 inch thick.  Cut into 6 squares (or random shapes in my case, because who the heck can actually roll dough into a perfect rectangle?), and place them 2 inches apart onto a greased baking sheet.  Brush the tops with the 1 Tbsp cream.  Bake in a 375-degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until risen and golden on top.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Make the whipped cream.

To serve, cut the biscuits in half length-wise.  Sprinkle one half with strawberries, add whipped cream, and either: top with the other biscuit half OR add strawberries and whipped cream to the other half and gorge.  Fight for the leftovers.