Lots of people know Strawberry Shortcake from the hit tv show, Strawberry Shortcake. I loved watching this TV show when I was little with my older sister, and we would always make up our own little stories. People also popularized Raspberry Torte, Plum Pudding, Lemon Meringues, and many other desserts from the TV show.
Strawberry shortcake is a sweet, small cake that my mom and I love baking. It was a great way to pass time during a school break or simply a weekend, and I loved spending time with my mom in the kitchen!
Strawberry shortcake was first found in an English cookbook from 1588, and the sweet treat was made popular when William Shakespeare used the name Alice Shortcake in “The Merry Wives of Windsor."
My mom and I found this recipe thanks to quarantine. We were bored one day, and I posed the idea of baking a new cake that we had never tried before. I like this cake because it has a reduced amount of sugar than other strawberry shortcake recipes.
The ingredients you’ll need for the cake layers are:
2½ cups of all-purpose flour
2½ tbsp of baking powder
½ tsp of salt
½ cup of room-temperature butter
½ cup of vegetable oil
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1½ cups of sugar
4 eggs
1 ¼ cups of milk
The ingredients for the strawberries are:
3 tbsp of sugar
1 lb of fresh strawberries (about 2 medium-sized containers)
Did you know strawberries are the only fruit to have seeds on the outside? Each strawberry has 200 seeds, and each one counts as its own separate fruit! My mom and I laughed a lot at this silly fact.
You can buy whipped cream at the store, or make some yourself with heavy whipping cream.
Before you bake the cake, it’s preferable to prepare the strawberries first as it takes a while. First, you will want to wash and cut the stems off the strawberries, then cut the strawberries into halves or fourths. Leave a few strawberries for the top layer of the cake. Finally, add the strawberries and sugar into a large bowl and mix them until the sugar is coated over the strawberries. This gets the strawberries very juicy and sweet! You will want to leave them in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Now, you will bake the cake. Prepare three 9-inch cake pans with parchment paper covering the bottom and sides of the pan. This will help in getting the cake out easier later. Next, preheat your oven to bake to 350 Fahrenheit (176 Celsius). Then, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and set it aside.
Next, put the butter, oil, sugar, and vanilla extract into a large mixer bowl, and beat it together until it is fluffy and light in color. Then add the eggs one at a time, mixing until it is mostly combined. Add half the dry ingredients to the batter and mix until it’s mostly combined. Slowly add the milk and mix until well combined. Finally, add the remainder of the dry ingredients and mix until it is well combined and smooth. It should be a yellowish-beige color.
Add ⅓ of the batter to the cake pan, and bake it in the oven for 18-20 minutes. When the layer is ready, place it on a plate for the time being. Repeat this step until all three layers have been baked.
To put the cake together, place the first layer of the cake onto your final platter. Add a layer of whipped cream and strawberries. Be sure not to add too many strawberries! Then, place the next cake layer on top of the first. Repeat this step. When you add the final layer, you want to make it very appealing. Add whipped cream and strawberries as you like. I enjoy making tufts of whipped cream on the edges and a swirl in the middle, then adding the uncut strawberries onto the tufts.
My mom and I have also made blueberry shortcake, and it was a popular treat with my family as well.
When you finish your cake, put it into a refrigerator an hour before eating it, so that it stays fresh and delicious!
This is one of my favorite cakes, and my friends and family love the dessert! The experience brought my mom and I together, and I really loved spending time with her. I hope you can have fun spending time in the kitchen with someone you care about making this cake.