Strawberry shortcakes

The last few weeks have seen an influx of cheap strawberries coming in to all the grocery shops in the area. It's bad for the growers (someone told me that farmers in Florida were just destroying the strawberry crop because it isn't worth the time and money to harvest it...which is super sad. but what can you do when everybody thinks it's a great idea to grow strawberries out of season??) but great for me. I managed to get 4 pounds of strawberries for about $5.


Naturally, I looked around the internet for strawberry shortcake recipes :) I also looked for some other strawberry recipes but surprisingly, there aren't a whole lot of them to be found. I think the general consensus was that fresh strawberries were best eaten as is.

Anyway, I managed to find a sweet cream scone recipe and she also had an easy homemade strawberry jam recipe too. So, double win for me. Both recipes are simple and easy to make. The cream scones are just sweet enough that a pat of butter is all it takes (they were good even on their own) and the sauce/jam has a great kick to it, with the balsamic vinegar bringing out an unexpected depth to the strawberry flavour. After this, I won't ever buy strawberry jam again. I didn't mess with the cream scone recipe (so it's pretty much verbatim) but I did cut down the sugar in the sauce/jam. Here are the links for the original recipes:

Cream Scones.
Strawberry sauce/jam.

Cream Scones Recipe  from Alice's blog
Makes about 16 small scones

2 cups (9 ounces) All Purpose Flour *I HIGHLY encourage you to weigh the ingredients with a kitchen
                                                                               scale. It really does make a difference.
1 Tbsp baking powder
4 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 egg slightly beaten
1 tsp. of vanilla
2 Tbl. of sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Place the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and butter in a food processor. Pulsate everything in 3-second intervals until everything resembles course meal. If doing this by hand, use 2 knives, a pastry blender or your fingers until the mixture resembles course meal.

Transfer everything to a large bowl. Stir in heavy cream, egg, and vanilla mixing the dough by hand until it forms into a uniformed and slightly moistened dough. *You can also use your Kitchenaid with the dough hook on the slowest speed for a few minutes.

On a floured surface, grab enough dough to fit into your hand about the size of a baseball and gently roll it in a ball. Flatten the ball and until your disk is approx. 3/4″ in height. Press down the outside of the dough circle so the center is slightly taller. Evenly sprinkle sugar on top of each circle.

Cut each circle in quarters. You should have enough dough to make 4 circles and 16 scones.
Bake on a ungreased cookie sheet, or line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Bake for 15 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown. Remove scones from baking sheet and cool on a wire rack.

Easy Balsamic Strawberry Sauce and Jam Recipe

2 cups of chopped strawberries
1 cup of sugar (This is waaaaay too much sugar. Seriously. I cut it down to 2-3 tbsp or up to 1/4 c sugar)
2 Tbl. of balsamic vinegar (try 1 tbsp first before adding the second - 2 tbsp gives the sauce/jam quite a kick)

Fot strawberry sauce:
Cook strawberries, sugar, and balsamic vinegar in a medium pan on med-high heat for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally. I usually eye-ball the thickness of the sauce to determine when it is done. When the sauce is the consistency of maple syrup on the back of your spoon, remove from heat and allow to cool. Serve warm or cool.

For strwaberry jam:
Cook strawberries, sugar, and balsamic vinegar in a medium pan on med heat for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally. I usually eye-ball the thickness of the sauce to determine when it is done. When the jam mixture has reduced to the consistency of thick honey or 220 degrees F. remove from heat and allow to cool.

* I just doubled the recipe, cooked it to sauce consitency and bottled however much sauce I wanted, leaving the rest behind to become jam. Saves up on making two different batches.
* I liked the original 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar but I like sour things. My sister liked it better with 1 tbsp where the balsamic was less overpowering.
*The suger amount is really really really too much. Other recipes I've looked at in books have usually used 2-4 tbsp sugar. Even making a double batch (4 c of strawberries) with just 1/4 c of sugar is more than enough. And I used fairly sour strawberries. For the smaller, sweeter types of strawberries, less sugar is recommended.
*The jam is usually ready if you scrape the bottom of the pan and the liquid doesn't immediately fill the void. (see upper part of rightmost picture above).


Assembling the Strawberry shortcake:

Cut a scone in half. Fill with freshly made whipped cream (hand whipping cream isharder and more painful than it needs to be), strawberry sauce/jam and strawberries. YUM!

All together, I'd say it was some pretty great strawberry shortcakes.