Bensonhurst Kitchen: Strawberry Shortcake

In this week’s BK, Colleen serves up a saliva-inducing strawberry shortcake. I have to tell you, until trying this, I didn’t even like strawberry shortcake. Yet, despite my own predisposition, I can safely say this recipe’s a winner.

In fact, it wasn’t until after taking my first bite of this freshly-made new favorite of mine, that I realized what I previously called strawberry shortcake was just a cheap imitation. I now consider all those sapless sponge cakes covered in canned whipped cream and slipshod stacks of strawberries to be nothing more than hastily thrown together strawberry shortcuts.

Colleen’s Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:

Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

Filling & Topping

1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar (aka powdered sugar)
2 pounds strawberries, sliced
1 cup white sugar

Directions:

Combine sliced strawberries and 1 cup of white sugar. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch square cake pan.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl; set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until smooth.

Pour in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the greased cake pan.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

Cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack. When cool, cut your cake into equal sized squares.

While the cake is cooling, whip the heavy cream with the confectioners’ sugar to soft peaks.

To assemble the strawberry shortcakes, cut each cake square in half horizontally and put the bottom halves on plates. Spoon on whipped cream, strawberries and syrup, then top with the other slice of cake. Spoon on whipped cream and additional strawberries. Serve immediately!

Garnish with fresh strawberries (optional).

TIP: The longer the strawberries macerate the more syrup you will have. If you are a syrup lover you can leave the strawberries refrigerated overnight and you will be rewarded with some extra sweet syrupy goodness to top your shortcake.