Strawberry shortcake
With so many strawberries around, one is always looking for different ways of using this wonderful fruit. Here is one of my favourites, a half cake half biscuit filled and topped with lots of strawberries and cream. Yummy!
Ingredients
- 225g self-raising flour
- 1 level tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 75g butter or margarine
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1-2 tbsp milk (optional)
- 75g sugar
Filling
- 600g strawberries
- 4 level tbsp caster sugar
- 150ml fresh cream
Method
- Grease a 20.5cm (8inch) sandwich tin.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
- Add the fat and rub in.
- Stir in the sugar and add a little of the egg at a time, mixing well until it is blended. Use a little milk if necessary. Knead lightly.
- Lightly flour a surface and turn your dough onto this. Form into a round with your hands and then roll out to a 20.5cm (8inch) circle.
- Press it into the prepared tin and bake in a preheated oven at 190°C for 20 mins or until golden and firm. Turn out onto a rack and leave to cool.
- To prepare the filling, wash and hull the strawberries. Reserve a few for decoration and crush the rest with a fork. Sprinkle them with 2-3 level tbsp of sugar.
- Whip up the cream with the remaining sugar.
- When the shortcake is almost cold, split very carefully in half, horizontally, with a long knife.
- Put the bottom half on a serving platter and spread half of the crushed strawberries over it.
- Place the other half of the cake on top of this and spread the rest of the crushed strawberries over this.
- Top with the whipped cream and decorate with the reserved whole strawberries.
This and similar recipes can be found in Pippa’s award winning book ‘Pippa’s festa’ available at all leading books shops and online.
