Strawberry Shortcake
Date Completed: 7/4/2022
You’ve heard of Christmas in July so how about we start something new: Fourth of July in January! Sounds excellent to think of summertime right about now. To celebrate the Fourth last summer, we made Strawberry Shortcake from the Magnolia Table Desserts chapter.
I’ve admittedly been cheating when it comes to Magnolia Table. The very first recipe in the book is Jojo’s Biscuits. I definitely had to make these, but there is another recipe in that same breakfast chapter that I really want to make.
I’m reserving that other recipe as my official Breakfast entry. We’re doing Strawberry Shortcake from the Desserts chapter which just so happens to call for one batch of Jojo’s Biscuits. Funny how things just work out!
The biscuit recipe is fairly simple to throw together! It does require a pastry cutter that we had to purchase. It also includes self-rising flour and buttermilk which aren’t typically staples in my kitchen.
Once you cut the butter into the flour mixture you drizzle in a beaten egg. You moisten the dough with buttermilk to help it all fully come together. And then the dough chills in the fridge prior to being rolled out.
While the biscuit dough chilled, I chopped strawberries and tossed them with sugar.
Then it was time to roll out and cut the biscuit dough. It gets a light egg wash and Joanna recommended baking them on a sheet pan all touching. This was to help them rise up tall!
With the biscuits in the oven I got started on the whipped cream. It was a very simple recipe with heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, and salt. By the time I finished this the biscuits were ready to come out of the oven.
I felt great satisfaction out of how well the timing worked out between macerating the strawberries, baking the biscuits, and whipping up the cream. That feeling of mastering the timing was one of the best parts of this simple recipe!
The other great thing about the recipe was the simple yet life-changing directions to place the whipped cream dollops on the bottom biscuit prior to loading them up with strawberries. More on that in the taste report!
Taste Report:
The biscuit itself was so buttery! Soft inside with a crunchy crust. I especially loved the butteriness and crunchiness of the bottom biscuit!
The strawberries were very bright and sweet which was perfect. We served these with extra strawberries on the side. The whipped cream was not too sweet. That made it work great with both the strawberries and the biscuits in my opinion.
The biscuits are straight from Joanna’s Breakfast chapter as I mentioned. Since they were not modified at all for dessert, this means they are a bit salty rather than sweet. Personally, I loved the contrast this created. Garrett said he would have preferred a sweeter biscuit, though. Maybe some crunchy sugar on top next time would make them even better?
I had what I referred to as a “raised pinky moment” while enjoying this dessert. I couldn’t stop smelling the fresh mint garnish as I ate! It just added such a nice balance of earthiness to the sweetness. Maybe I’ve been watching too many cooking competitions?
One thing I absolutely loved was the plating technique of adding the whipped cream first to the bottom biscuit before any strawberries. I loved it because solved one of my biggest texture problems with Strawberry Shortcake - the soggy bottom! I always end up with the strawberries soaking through that biscuit. With the barrier of the whipped cream, the bottom biscuit stayed absolutely perfect the entire time. Simple but ingenious!
Mess Report:
I’ll sum it up with a quote I wrote down from Garrett: “We used every measuring spoon we had.”
How funny that such a simple recipe required every single one of our measuring spoons.
So there you have it! A taste of summer for our Fourth of July in January celebrations!
Stay tuned for another Magnolia Table recipe that just so happened to include Jojo’s Biscuits!