Tags: Little Foodies Sweet Tooth
While writing this I realized this recipe would have been great for Valentine’s Day last week. Of course, if you follow me on Instagram you know that I failed hard and completely forgot about Valentine’s Day. I pulled some tricks out of my hat and salvaged the day, but if I’d remembered, properly planned and NOT been in the middle of setting up the new house, I would have made this tasty little treat for my Valentine.
I’m a strawberry LOVER, so most of my desserts contain strawberries in some shape or form—strawberry ice cream, frozen strawberries with warm chocolate sauce, or just a bowl of fresh sliced strawberries. Any way you slice them, I’ll eat them. (See what I did there?) Knowing my love of strawberries was only surpassed by my love of Leonardo DiCaprio, my mom always had strawberries in the house when I was growing up. Both of my amazing Grandmothers lived within a 3-mile radius and were constantly dropping off strawberries, and every Saturday my dad and I would ride our bikes down to the corner fruit stand for strawberries. Yeah, I am, and have always been, a strawberry fanatic!
While Liev has inherited my strawberry obsession, BOTH boys have inherited their dad’s love of bread. When Adrian and I were first married, I was shocked at how much bread he ate…we were going through two loaves a week…and I wasn’t eating any!! Now that my boys are in the picture, two loaves a week is nothing! Between the three of them, they’ll eat a loaf or two in a DAY! It’s amazing to watch.
Adrian used to be all about the Italian batard or some other rustic yeast-filled beauty. Then we moved to Norfolk Virginia and Adrian discovered his inner Southerner. We were exploring our new town and came across a restaurant called Supper Southern Morsels—they cook Southern food as it’s meant to be cooked. They brought a plate of homemade biscuits to the table, Adrian took one bite, and his entire world was shaken. He cleaned the plate and asked for another. Excited about this new-found appreciation for Southern food, I introduced him to Sean Brock (I had discovered him on the Netflix show Mind of a Chef) and his South Carolina restaurant, Husk. He fell in love…HARD! Anyway…long story story…I’m now married to a Southern boy, from Mountain View California (never thought I’d say that).
My quest for the perfect biscuit started shortly after that meal at Supper. I’ve since tried a million and a half recipes trying to find the perfect one. The recipe I use isn’t perfect—and if you have a better one, I’d LOVE to try it—but it’s the best out of millions I’ve tried, and my family enjoys them immensely.
The point of these two anecdotes is that I found a way to combine these two wonderful treats.
While I’ve always loved strawberries, I’ve never been a fan of strawberry shortcakes. It’s the shortcake I don’t care for. You put the cake at the bottom, juicy strawberries on top, and suddenly your cake is nothing but mush. No Bueno! I think my mom had the same issues with the dish because early on she started serving strawberry shortcake with sugar cookies at the bottom instead of shortcake and that was a huge improvement…but I’ve discovered an even better solution. Deconstructed strawberry shortcake with biscuits. The biscuits are sturdy enough to hold up to the juicy strawberries and if you slice them in half (like I do) you end up with one juice-soaked biscuit bottom and a perfectly intact/melt-in-your-mouth one on top Win/Win.
The whole thing is topped off with homemade whipped cream and HOLY MOLY…this is one dessert you’ll want to make ALL THE TIME!! Trust me…I’m the strawberry expert!
DECONSTRUCTED STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
FOR THE STRAWBERRIES:
1 lb. strawberries, washed, hulled and sliced (or diced)
1 Tbsp sugar
In a bowl, toss the strawberries with the sugar. Set aside while you make your biscuits. The strawberries will begin to release all their delicious juicy goodness.
FOR THE BISCUITS:
*NOTE: You really should use self-rising flour for this biscuit recipe, but I absolutely hate buying extra ingredients for recipes when I know full-well I’ll never use the special ingredient for anything else. I’m a minimalist so I just use plain old all-purpose flour. If you have self-rising flour, use it instead (and skip the baking powder). If you’re like me and don’t want to have a sack of special flour sitting in your kitchen that you’ll never use before its expiration date, use all-purpose with the baking powder as indicated below.
2 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar (if you need a non-sweet biscuit, leave out the sugar)
½ cup butter (1 stick), frozen
1 cup buttermilk, chilled
Preheat oven to 475°
Grate the butter into a large mixing bowl using the large holes on a box grater. Pour the flour, baking powder and sugar into the bowl. Mix and put in the freezer to chill 10 minutes.
Make a well in the center and pour the buttermilk into the butter/flour mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon but be careful not to overmix. Just give the mixture about 20 turns with the spoon. The mixture will be more on the wet side.
Turn the dough out onto a slightly floured surface and using a slightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to about a ½ inch thickness and about a 5×9 inch rectangle. Fold the dough in half so that the short ends meet. Roll the dough back out to a ½ inch thickness and 5×9 rectangle. Repeat this folding step 4 more times.
Once you’ve finished all your folds, roll it out to about ¾ inch and using a slightly floured biscuit cutter (mine is about 2 ½ inches) cut out your biscuits and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet.
*NOTE: Make sure when you’re cutting out your biscuits, you push the cutter down and pull straight back up. DO NOT TWIST your cutter when cutting the dough. This is what gives your biscuits those beautifully layered sides.
Bake at 475° for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush the tops with melted butter.
FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp almond extract (vanilla extract works just as well)
Whip your cream, powdered sugar and extract in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy (or whisk by hand if you skipped arm-day at the gym).
TO CONSTRUCT:
Slice a biscuit in half. Place the biscuit bottom at the bottom of your parfait glass. Place a generous scoop of strawberries on top. Add a scoop of whipped cream on top of that. Now, top this bad boy with the biscuit top and enjoy.
The real trick to this dessert is trying not to eat all your strawberries while you’re waiting for the biscuits to cook…AND beating your family away from the biscuits hot out of the oven while you’re constructing your desserts. Good luck!
