That’s not REAL strawberry shortcake!

I still clearly remember my then-boyfriend (now-husband!) telling me this when I described the strawberry shortcake I’d grown up with. Sliced strawberries, whipped topping (usually Cool-Whip so my mom could indulge too), and angel food cake. That last one apparently was the offending ingredient – REAL strawberry isn’t made with angel food cake. Instead, it’s made with biscuits – who knew?!

Flash forward to this week, and my husband and I were on a “make everything from scratch” kick (we broke down a whole chicken, but that’s a story for another time and place, haha!). This summer staple dessert sprang into my head, and I knew I had to make it. Had to experience the real deal. 

A quick search led me here. And the recipe seemed simple enough, so out to the store we went. 

Having never made biscuit dough before, I was very thankful for my stand mixer! It brought the dough together super quickly. Then I floured my counter, kneaded and rolled out the dough, and cut perfect little biscuit circles out with my old fashioned biscuit cutter. 

Then the recipe had me brush half of the biscuits with butter and layer the other half on top. I guess to kind of form a biscuit sandwich to later pull apart and stuff with strawberries and cream? Seemed like unnecessary work to me, but I gave it a shot. And threw the biscuits in the oven. 

And they baked…and baked…and baked. I knew something was off because every time I checked the biscuits (when they should have been finished cooking), they were done on the edges but still raw in the middle. I decided it must be the weird stacking the recipe required, so I took the biscuit towers apart and continued baking. Still raw! And now the edges were getting dangerously close to burning…

So I dug into the recipe’s comments and found others had had the same problem. They suggested cooking at 375 instead of 450. So I lowered the temperature, and bam – cooked biscuits!

Now, during this oven adventure, I also whipped up some real whipped cream (couldn’t just go halfway with this one!). And again, it was my stand mixer hero to the rescue. I just put in the cream and some sugar (another omission in the recipe…yuck – both my husband and I can attest to the importance of a little SUGAR here!) in the bowl and set it to mix mix mix. Voilá – perfect whipped cream!

Then it was a simple matter of artistic construction – biscuit, strawberries, another biscuit, more strawberries, and a little dollop of whipped cream. 

So what’s my final verdict? I’m glad I’ve had the classic now! The dryness of the biscuits pairs well with the sweet, juicy strawberries. And the whipped cream melts in almost like a sweet butter. 

But in all honesty, I think I need to try another biscuit recipe to be fully satisfied and turn away from the angel food cake here. This biscuit was too dry and a bit too bland for my taste. Maybe I’ll do another rendition in the future 🤔