Basic Strawberry Short Cakes
Ben Ashby
The start of strawberry season is nearly upon us! Our favorite way to celebrate is with a daily short cake. It’s basically the most iconic spring dessert and likely the easiest spring dessert. While it’s always nice to grow your own strawberries, this current season we’re in has the store bought berries basically too affordable to justify growing on your own.
If you are going with store bought, go for the medium sized berries. While the giant ones may see like a good value, they lack sweetness or really any flavor at all.
Like I said this recipe couldn’t be much easier, it’s a doctored french vanilla cake mix, berries, sugar, and fresh whipped cream.
RECIPE
1 Boxed French Vanilla Cake Mix
Milk, eggs, melted butter (follow directions on cake mix box for amounts.
For the cake simply follow the directions on box, but substitute the water with milk and the oil with melted butter.
While the cake is baking make the whipped cream. Fresh whipped cream is so very easy to make, it’s impossible for me to justify using a whipped topping when you can whip up whipped cream in under five minutes.
WHIPPED CREAM
1 Pint Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Whip ingredients until soft peaks form. I prefer to do this by hand as it gives a feeling of accomplishment, but using a stand mixer is acceptable.
Do not over mix, the cream will not get fluffier and fluffier, instead it will turn to butter.
SUGARED STRAWBERRIES
Fresh strawberries
Sugar
Slice strawberries and place in a bowl. Toss with a good amount of sugar. No need to fully coat, but enough to know there is sugar in the bowl. Allow to sit overnight. The sugar will draw out the liquid from the strawberries creating a wonderful sauce for your short cakes.
Cut cakes into desired sizes. I use over sized cookie cutters or a wide mouth canning lid as a template. Add a heaping amount of the chilled whipped cream. Top with berries and sauce and garnish with fresh mint.
