Fresh Berry Shortcake

I've been on vacation. . . it was wonderful!  I want to go back. . . the beach is my happy spot.  I am very thankful for my in-laws who whisked the whole family away for a family getaway to a cooler spot.  It was marvelous.  Now, I am home and diving back into reality (dishes, laundry, dinners, schedules) and it's our church's Extreme Family Adventure week in the evenings.  This should be an exciting AND exhausting week!  Bring it on!

Saturday morning, I found the most delicious and beautiful berries at the farmers market (not uncommon to find beautiful produce where I live).  I, of course, had to buy them.  But, because it is so hot, I need to use them up quick, so I thought I would make a batch of strawberry shortcakes.  My favorite kind are those made with a lightly sweetened biscuit cut in half and filled with whipped cream and layered with fresh sliced berries and sandwiched together with the top piece of biscuit.  Then sprinkled with powdered sugar and maybe even some white chocolate shavings. . . I know. . . death by strawberry shortcake may be happening in our house.

However, last night probably had disaster written all over it.  I have been really wanting to try making whipped cream out of coconut milk.  I mean, I make an awesome whipped cream with heavy whipping cream, how hard can it be???  HARD.  The best thing ever was after admitting it on Facebook, I found out that I am no the only one!  Thanks friends. . . you made me feel better!  I tried it first with a can of coconut milk, but since it's been warmer and I didn't store mine in the fridge, the cream part was not thick. . . like crisco.  So, I saved that option for another project, then moved on to canned coconut cream.  Yep, thicker, but NOT a solid material like I saw on the blog post I had pinned.  I whipped that stuff for about 15 minutes before giving up.  It got thicker, but not even close to stiff peaks.  I was super bummed!  So, my failed attempts were put back into the fridge and we made into the base for ice cream today (we will see how that turns out!).

So, despite my failure to make a whipped cream that I could enjoy.  My husband enjoyed two of these babies!  They were amazing!  The recipe for the shortbread was a new one that I had pinned very quickly. . . this was all very spur of the moment!  I loved the way the shortbread looked in the pictures. . . it looked amazing, but the recipe just didn't seem right.  I followed it according to her directions, assuming that she new what she was doing and maybe I just didn't know.  But, I ended up with pancake batter. . . not exactly biscuit dough.  So, I went online and looked at other recipes and came up with conclusion that I needed more flour (my original thought was that 1/2 cup just couldn't be enough. . . and I was right!).  1 cup later and I had the most beautiful, tasty biscuit dough in my bowl.  AWESOME!!! 

Shortcake Recipe:

Adapted from here. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour

1 Tbs baking powder

2 1/2 Tbs sugar

5 Tbs butter

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup milk for brushing

sanding sugar/regular sugar

Directions:

Preaheat oven to 425 degrees

Combine dry ingredients.  Zap butter in microwave for about 20 seconds.  Add it to the dry ingredients along with the flour.  Stir until you have a beautiful, dough-y ball.  Press onto your silpat and cut out circles (or squares, hearts. . . whatever you fancy).  Brush on some milk over the tops of each biscuit and sprinkle sugar or sanding sugar over the tops of each.  Bake for 20 minutes (this completely depends on the size of your biscuit.  

FRUIT:  slice your strawberries and combine with fresh raspberries, blackberries, blueberries. . . whatever you have on hand.  Sprinkle with a bit of sugar to draw out the juices and let sit for a few minutes.  I usually do this while my biscuits are cooking.  I think later this week, we are going to try some with peaches!  Really, the possibility is endless! 

Buy a can of redi whip, cool whip, or make your own whipped cream.  I am always a fan of the homemade version, but my husband wanted to make my life easier and brought home a container of cool whip.  No matter, what it's amazing! 

I like to sprinkle with powdered sugar once I'm done and with this one, I added some shavings of white chocolate.  

I won't lie.  My husband ate 2.   He will probably eat more tonight.  

Have a happy day!