I love the month of June. Every year, around the second week of June, Jeff and I go to our local favorite, C.N. Smith Farm, to pick your own strawberries. We usually come home with 10-12 pounds of strawberries which we use for a number of recipes as well as freezing a few to enjoy through the summer. This year, we made strawberry jam, too...which is a story for another time. Instead of strawberry jam, we ended up with strawberry sauce. That was definitely a "back to the drawing board" recipe.
So, I remembered pinning a recipe to one of my Pinterest boards from Oh Sweet Basil for Lemon Shortcakes with Strawberries. As much as I love to fall back on our favorites, what's a new strawberry season without a new strawberry dessert. I love lemon with strawberries and Jeff loves any type of dessert with strawberries so we had to try this out.
Some of our past strawberry dessert recipes are still good...
1. Wilson Farm's Strawberry Shortcake
2. Visitandine with Strawberries
The recipe was easy to put together and while the shortcakes were in the refrigerator, I cut up the starwberries and got them mixed and chilling. I love making homemade shortcakes, they taste so good and because they are so fresh they absorb the juices of the berries and make for a deliciously tasting dessert. Best word to describe it..."melt in your mouth" - freshly picked strawberries, homemade shortcakes and fresh whipped cream, is there anything more delicious?
Thirty minutes later they went into the oven, but be careful, my one issue with shortcakes is the degree you bake them at. This recipe calls for an oven at 425 degrees. In these types of recipes, there is always a fine line between golden and burned. Though these bake in 12-15 minutes, start looking at them at 10 minutes, sometimes the difference between not burning the shortcakes is 1 minute.
Once the lemon shortcakes came out of the oven, I whipped the cream and just waited for the family to drift through the kitchen for dessert. As the shortcakes were cooling, the strawberries were floating in a bright sea of sauce and the whipped cream was ready to go. As many of you know, I like my desserts with chocolate...lots of chocolate, meaning, I'm not a big strawberry shortcake fan. Well, that night I was! The Lemon Shortcakes were tangy and sweet and had a wonderful silky texture. The strawberries were a perfect complement and with a little bit of whipped cream it was dessert heaven.
There is only one way to eat a really good strawberry shortcake
1. Try and make your shortcake from scratch (even if it is Bisquick)
2. Use fresh berries, they're always better than frozen
3. Take the time and whip the cream - no cool whip or canned whip cream
Before the summer is over, you deserve to treat yourself to atleast one strawberry dessert - let it be Lemon Strawberry Shortcake with Fresh Whipped Cream - you won't be disappointed.
Ingredients for Lemon Shortcakes
2 cups of flour
5 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
3/4 teaspoon of kosher salt
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup of cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1-1/2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup of heavy cream, plus a few tablespoons for topping
1/4cup of milk
Strawberry Topping
1 pint of strawberries, sliced in quarters
2 tablespoons of sugar
Place strawberries in a medium sized bowl and add the sugar. Stir the strawberries a few times to blend with the sugar. Place the mixture in the refrigerator for atleast an hour. This will allow the strawberry juices to release, giving you a wonderfully sweetened sauce.
Fresh Whipped Cream
1-1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon of sugar
Using a hand mixer, place the heavy whipping cream and sugar in a bowl and whip on high speed until soft to firm peaks appear. Depending on how you like your whipped cream.
Preparation of the Lemon Shortcakes
1. In a medium bowl, blend all of the dry ingredients together - sugar, flour, salt, and baking powder.
2. Using a small whisk, add the lemon zest and blend thoroughly.
3. Using a pastry cutter, blend the cold butter pieces into the mixture until you have a grainy consistency with pieces that are about pea size.
4. Using a fork, add the egg, lemon juice, heavy cream and milk to the butter mixture and mix until the dough comes together.
5. Place on a floured surface and knead to bring the mixture together.
6. Roll out the dough to a 1/2 inch thickness and using a cookie or biscuit cutter, cut and place on a slightly greased cookie sheet.
7. Place the biscuits in the refrigerator, cover with plastic wrap for 30 minutes to rest.
8. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
9. Remove biscuits from the refrigerator and brush with a little heavy cream and them sprinkle with sugar.
10. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly golden. Be careful not to let the bottoms burn.
11. Remove from oven and cool on racks.
12. Ten minutes before serving, whip the fresh cream.
13. To assemble, cut biscuit in half (we used two biscuits) and place in dish, spoon strawberries on to the biscuit and add fresh whipped cream.
14. Grab a spoon and indulge!
