Strawberry Shortcake (2024)

Strawberry shortcake is a beloved warm weather treat composed of a melt-in-your-mouth flaky biscuit topped with a generous dollop of cloud-like whipped cream and sweetened fresh strawberries. It’s the best way to take advantage of the season’s bounty of fresh berries! My strawberry shortcake recipe is so easy to make from scratch, you’ll never buy it from a store again.

While strawberry shortcake doesn’t need to be made only with biscuits, and can be made with angel food cake, white cake, or pound cake, I prefer the buttery, tender quality of biscuits for this dessert. If you’re looking for more dessert recipes, you need to try my cream puffs, mini cheesecakes, or strawberry tart.

What You Need to Make this Recipe

Sugar — you need granulated sugar, also called white sugar, to add a little sweetness to the biscuits and to stir with the strawberries.

Leavening — a combination of baking powder and baking soda helps the sweet biscuits rise for fluffy shortcakes.

Butter — cold butter is a must for this recipe! It produces the iconic flaky texture in biscuits.

Buttermilk — use whole or full-fat buttermilk for the most tender shortcakes. If you don’t want to buy an entire carton of buttermilk, I share a quick recipe in the FAQ section for how to make buttermilk at home.

Egg — a large egg helps give the biscuit structure and richness.

Vanilla — delicately scenting the biscuits with vanilla extract is what really turns these biscuits into a delicious dessert treat.

Macerated strawberries — macerating strawberries simply means mixing sliced fresh strawberries with sugar and leaving them to marinate for a while. The sugar sweetens the berries and helps to draw out the berry juices.

Homemade whipped cream — whipped cream is so easy to make at home with cold heavy whipping cream, granulated sugar, and vanilla extract.

How to Make Strawberry Shortcake

1. Make the macerated strawberries by placing them in a bowl and sprinkling them with sugar. Mix and cover and place the bowl in the fridge so the juice can be drawn out of the berries while you bake the biscuits.

2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a measuring cup or medium bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients and set aside for now. Add the cubed unsalted butter to the flour mixture and work it in with your hands or a pastry cutter until the butter is in small, crumbly pieces, about the size of peas.

3. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and mix using a fork or spatula. A shaggy dough will form.

4. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface sprinkled with flour to prevent sticking. Work the dough just until it holds together and pat it down to 1-inch thickness.

5. Use a floured 3-inch biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter to cut out 8 shortcake biscuits. You can reform the scraps to make more shortcakes if you want.

6. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Brush the tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar for a crunchy sugar topping, if desired. Bake at 425°F for 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Cool the homemade biscuits on the baking sheet for at least 20 minutes.

7. Make the whipped cream by beating the cold heavy whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla extract in an electric mixer or stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Chill the homemade whipped cream until ready to serve.

8. Assemble each strawberry shortcake. Split the biscuits in half. Add a dollop of whipped cream and a pile of juicy strawberries to the bottom half of the biscuit. Place the top half of the biscuit on top of that, pile with more whipped cream and strawberries, and serve immediately.

Pro Tips for Making this Recipe

• Mix the strawberries and sugar at the very beginning. This will give the sugar time to draw the liquid out of the berries, making them extra juicy.
• Use cold cubed butter. You need cold butter to make the biscuit dough, so the butter melts and steams while the biscuits bake, which will give you perfectly flaky biscuits. If your kitchen is warm, cut the butter into cubes and freeze it for 10 minutes before working it into the flour.
• You can cut the butter into the dough using a food processor, if desired. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of a food processor, pulse to combine, then add the butter. Pulse 3 or 4 times just to break down the butter pieces. Pour in the buttermilk mixture and pulse a few more times just until the dough starts to get shaggy (it will still resemble large coarse crumbs). Turn it out on the counter and work it together into a single ball as directed in the recipe.
• For taller biscuits: Place the biscuits close to each other on the baking sheet, but not touching. Leaving about an inch between them is perfect. Doing so actually helps them rise taller during baking, versus if you spread them out farther apart.
• Biscuit cutter tip: Press straight down with the cutter and don’t twist. Twisting seals the edge and prevents the shortcake from rising well.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you’ve tried this strawberry shortcake recipe, then don’t forget to rate it and let me know how you got on in the comments below. I love hearing from you!