Easy Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
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Strawberry Shortcake is one of our favorites desserts! Light and delicious it’s the perfect way to end a meal.
If you’ve never made Strawberry Shortcake homemade from scratch before it’s actually quite easy! This recipe makes a sweet crumbly biscuit style pastry with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. While some people use white cake or angel food cake in strawberry shortcake, I think the biscuit style tastes the best! Of course strawberries are the traditional topping but you can certainly add any kind of fruit into shortcake including blueberries, raspberries or even peaches.
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How to Make Easy Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
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Whether in a Strawberries & Cream Pie or if they’re being stuffed with cheesecake or chocolate cheesecake, sweet fresh strawberries are the perfect dessert. (And they can be made into beautiful strawberry roses in no time at all). But of course at the top of the list is a Classic Strawberry Shortcake!
This shortcake is light, fluffy and has just a hint of lemon flavor. I make this in a food processor but it can also be made by hand using a pastry cutter. It’s important to make sure your butter is cold when cutting it in which keeps these light and fluffy. For the best results, add the liquid all at once and mix just until combined.
You’ll want to mascerate the strawberries (which is just a fancy word for adding sugar so they release their juices). I add a bit of fresh lemon juice because I just love the brightness lemon adds to strawberries. If you have enough you can certainly add some lemon zest as well or even orange zest. Leave the strawberries at room temperature for at least 30 minutes (longer is better) to make sure you get more liquid creating a delicious syrup to spoon over the shortcakes.
Tools You’ll Need For This Recipe
* Pastry Cutter or Food Processor * Baking Pan * Parchment Paper *
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- lemon zest
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 4 oz cold unsalted butter
- coarse sugar
- 3 cups fresh strawberries sliced
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- lemon zest
- Whipped Cream
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Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and line a baking pan with parchment paper.
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Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt & lemon zest in a small bowl (or food processor).
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Add cold butter and cut in with a fork or pulse a few times with a food processor (or cut in by hand using a pastry cutter) until you have coarse crumbs. Stir in buttermilk.
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Drop dough onto the prepared pan. Sprinkle with coarse sugar and lemon zest. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned.
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Combine sliced strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and let sit at room temperature at least 30 minutes to release juices.
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Serve biscuits with strawberries and whipped cream.
Note: If you don’t have buttermilk, place 1 tablespoon lemon juice in a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Top to 1/2 cup with milk. Set aside.
(Nutriton information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.)
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Holly
Holly is a wine and cheese lover, recipe creator, shopping enthusiast and self appointed foodie. Her greatest passion is creating in the kitchen and making deliciously comforting recipes for the everyday home cook!
This was super delicious! My kids and I devoured them…all, haha. The shortcake was super tender, and the lemon was a brilliant touch to both. I’m definitely saving this recipe for future use. Thank you for sharing!
I’m so glad you loved it Tabatha!
Just made these in my food processor and it was so quick and easy. I did have to add more buttermilk but they were absolutely delicious!!!
So glad to hear you loved them Jules!
My dough was dry too. Just added more buttermilk. Sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Can this recipe be doubled successfully. Thanks
Yes, you can double this recipe easily Sandy. You may find it easier to mix each batch of shortcake separately.
I needed a good dessert tonight for a Church group that would fit into my timeline. Busicuits smell wonderful with the added lemon zest and strawberries are sliced and ready to go. Thank you for helping me to find the perfect dessert for the occasion.
That put a smile on my face Bonnie! You’re welcome. Enjoy!
Thanks Holly for this great and simple recipe! I made this with some personal substitutes like mixed 2% milk and low fat yogurt in place of buttermilk (1:1) and sweetener instead of sugar and it turned out perfect. A great tip, use frozen whip (thawed for a little while in fridge).
So glad you enjoyed it Beth! Thanks for the tip!
Looking forward to trying this recipe! Just wanted to pass on a tip that my grandmother gave me for cutting cold butter into a flour mixture…use a cheese grater! The large hole size of course. I do this every time I want to make a crumbly crust for a pie. The “shredded” butter is the perfect size for a crumbly flour mixture. Works even better if the butter is frozen first! Can’t wait to try this recipe, I love strawberry shortcake! :)
What a great kitchen hack! Thanks so much for sharing Zoe! I hope you love the recipe!
A huge hit with my family. The lemon definitely adds something light and special! Needed to add just a tad more buttermilk; otherwise followed the recipe exactly!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Mary Beth!
I plan to make these tonight for our friends coming over but want to double it to be sure we have enough. If there is extra, I thought about freezing. Have you ever successfully frozen these?
I have just put these biscuits in the oven. The recipe is simple to put together. 1/2 C is indeed sufficient liquid for the dough to form. I got 8 decent sized biscuits from the measurements stated. Can’t wait for them to come out of the oven
I”m so glad Dawna! Happy Easter! :)
Thank you for sharing! My shortcake recipe is similar, never thought of adding lemon zest to the biscuits. I always added it to the berries. Love all your recipes so far!
Thank you Dawn! Enjoy!
Just made this..amazing!! My husband loved it!!
*strawberry shortcake.
I followed the recipe exactly
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe Treshawn! :)
Followed the recipe exactly and 1/2 cup liquid is NOT EVEN CLOSE to making a dough; almost half the flour mixture was still dry. And you do not specify the SIZE of dough portion in step four – you only say to “drop dough onto the prepared pan”. Hack.
This recipe makes 6 biscuits so you’ll want to use 1/6 of the dough for each biscuit. As for the liquid, I have made this recipe several times and my dough turns out perfectly so I’m not sure why this didn’t work for you. You can see the YouTube video version of this recipe here. Hope that helps.
I just made these this morning and 1/2 C milk brought my dough together perfectly. Could you be that you are at a higher altitude?
Thanks for the recipe! The shortcake biscuits were absolutely delicious. I made them with orange zest and loved it. They were very light and soft in the center and slightly toasted on the outside…just perfect! My new go-to shortcake recipe!
I need to make enough for a Bible study group… around 22 folks. Do you have any suggestions?
Cheesecake stuffed strawberries are great for a crowd and not too difficult to prepare. {https://www.spendwithpennies.com/cheesecake-stuffed-strawberries/} or mini cheesecakes are always a hit! {https://www.spendwithpennies.com/mini-cheesecakes/}. I hope this helps!
Looks great! Thinking about making these for Mother’s Day… Is it ok to make shortbread a few days in advance?
I usually make it just before serving although I think 1 day in advance would be just fine. Be sure to seal them well overnight so they don’t dry out. Happy Mother’s Day!
Yumm!! This is so cute and looks delicious! I’m going to have to give it a try
Thank you Sam! I’m sure you’ll love them as much as we do!
It’s our favorite dessert as well! Except, your strawberries look way better than ours ;)
Oh how I love strawberry shortcake! Can’t wait to try this deliciousness!!
This is gorgeous! I’ve never made strawberry shortcake before. Clearly that needs to change.
Thank you Dana! It’s so good made from scratch!
We love fresh strawberries, and of course shortcake; bookmarking this one for a yummy treat!!!
Looks like the perfect Valentine’s dessert! Strawberries and whipped cream are the best together!
Thank you Averie! One of our favorite combos too, especially on Valentine’s day!!
Strawberry shortcake is my all time favorite cake. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Thank you Gail, I wish I could share some with you! :)