This Fuss-Free Strawberry Shortcake Is the Only One I'll Make from Now On
Because sometimes simple is everything.
Lauren Volo
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Strawberry-picking with my family is one of those childhood memories I never want to forget. We'd drive a half-hour out to the farm and pick till our fingers were stained red. The plump berries, all snuggled in their green pint containers, would line the shelves of my parents' refrigerator when we got home.
My mom and my grandma would spend hours turning those fresh-picked strawberries into jam, but what I looked forward to most was the strawberry shortcake. The sweet-tart berries, the buttery shortcake, the cool whipped cream on top — the combo was unbeatable.
But while on a recent Zoom call with my mom and brother, I realized that as much as I love the dessert, I use a different shortcake recipe every year (and my brother doesn't know how to make whipped cream, but that's another conversation!). Can you even call something your favorite dessert of all time if you don't have a go-to recipe?
I'm proof that you can. Recipes that require you to zest critus with a microplane, shape the dough into individual biscuits (so the kids won't fight over the biggest one), use vanilla bean paste, and cut in butter and shortening have all, no pun intended, burned me in the past.
Scrolling through the Food Network Kitchen app later that afternoon, I spotted Jessie Sheehan's Strawberry Shortcake class and instantly heard my mom's words from earlier: "Just make a big shortcake," she had told us. "It's a lot easier."
Jessie calls her recipe "easy-peasy," and requiring no fancy knife skills, no pastry blender and no strawberry huller, it's exactly that. In fact, she uses her hands to mix the berries and again to shape the shortcake and press it into the pan.
When you spread the butter-and-cream-filled shortcake dough into the pan, remember Jessie's clever advice: "It's not rocket science — doesn't have to be beautiful."
Because, honestly, there's a good chance your kids won't even remember how it looks. But they'll definitely remember how delicious it tastes.
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