Strawberry Shortcake (1918)
Reader ratingsFannie Farmer’s strawberry shortcake: biscuit dough baked in two pans, split and buttered, with warm crushed strawberries and her whipped Cream Sauce I.
- Recipe makes
- Two 8-inch shortcakes, 8 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The berries sit in their sugar while the dough is made and baked. Whip the cream while the cakes bake, warm the berries at the end and assemble just before serving.
A split biscuit shortcake filled with crushed strawberries, topped with whipped cream and more berries.
The story behind the recipe
Fannie Merritt Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, in the revised edition of 1918, makes strawberry shortcake from a plain biscuit dough of flour, baking powder, butter and milk, baked in two round tins, split, buttered and heaped with sweetened berries. Shortcake is the last dish on the typed menu for the Roosevelts’ 1939 picnic, before the coffee, beer and soft drinks. The Roosevelt kitchen’s own method isn’t recorded, and Farmer’s recipe was printed twenty-one years earlier.
Did shortcake still mean biscuit in the 1930s?
It did, by the Department of Agriculture’s account. Its bulletin Home Baking, revised in December 1931, still describes shortcake dough as biscuit dough with more fat, “sometimes a little sugar,” usually baked in two layers with butter between them “so that it will split easily,” in a rather hot oven. The department’s Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes of the same year puts strawberry shortcake on a May dinner menu.
In Farmer’s version the strawberries are warm. She sweetens them, sets them “on back of range until warmed,” crushes them slightly and spoons them between the layers and over the top. The cake goes under her Cream Sauce I, which is cream and milk beaten stiff with powdered sugar and vanilla. The next recipe on her page, Cream Sauce II, adds an egg; this one has none.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
We keep the warm berries, gently heated in a pan in place of the back of a coal range, and the cream sauce whipped just before serving. Eight-inch layer pans stand in for her “Washington pie or round layer cake tins.”
On the menu the shortcake comes right after the rolls, and Parker House Rolls (1931) bake at the same 425°F (220°C), so one hot oven serves both.
Strawberry Short Cake I
2 cups flour; 4 teaspoons baking powder; ½ teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoons sugar; ¾ cup milk; ¼ cup butter.
Mix dry ingredients, sift twice, work in butter with tips of fingers, and add milk gradually. ...
Recipe makes: Two 8-inch shortcakes, 8 servings
Ingredients
For Two 8-inch shortcakes, 8 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for Two 8-inch shortcakes, 8 servings.
Short cake
- All-purpose flour2 cups
- Baking powder4 tsp
- Salt1/2 tsp
- Sugar, for the dough2 tsp
- Cold butter, for the dough1/4 cup
- Cold milk, for the dough3/4 cup
- All-purpose flour, for the board2 tbsp
- Soft butter, for the pans1 tbsp
- Soft butter, for spreading2 tbsp
Strawberries
- Fresh strawberries3 lb
- Sugar, for the berries1/2 cup
Cream Sauce I
- Heavy cream3/4 cup
- Cold milk, for the cream sauce1/4 cup
- Powdered sugar1/3 cup
- Vanilla extract1/2 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar, for the dough
- ¼ cup cold butter, for the dough
- ¾ cup cold milk, for the dough
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour, for the board
- 1 tbsp soft butter, for the pans
- 2 tbsp soft butter, for spreading
- 3 lb fresh strawberries
- ½ cup sugar, for the berries
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup cold milk, for the cream sauce
- ⅓ cup powdered sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Equipment
- Two 8-inch round layer cake pans
- Sifter or fine sieve
- Large mixing bowl
- Medium bowl for the berries
Small saucepan- Chilled bowl and whisk or hand mixer
- Serrated knife
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Rinse and hull the strawberries, cut large ones in quarters and smaller ones in half, and toss them in the medium bowl with the sugar for the berries. Leave them while you make the cakes.
Heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Grease both pans with the soft butter for the pans.
Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar for the dough together twice into the large bowl. Work in the cold butter for the dough with your fingertips until it looks like coarse crumbs, then stir in the cold milk for the dough a little at a time with a fork, to a soft dough.
Dust the board with the flour for the board, turn the dough out and divide it in two. Pat and roll each half into a round to fit a pan, and press it in.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until risen and golden and the center reads 190°F (88°C).
While the cakes bake, put the heavy cream and the cold milk for the cream sauce in the chilled bowl and beat until it holds soft peaks. Beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla extract, and keep it in the refrigerator.
Tip the berries and their juice into the saucepan and warm them over low heat, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, until just warm to the touch. Crush them lightly with a fork.
Turn the cakes out, split each one across with the serrated knife while warm and spread the cut faces with the soft butter for spreading.
Set the bottom halves on plates, spoon over some of the berries, put the tops back on and spoon the rest of the berries over them. Cover the tops with the cream sauce and serve at once.
Nutrition
380calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- Two 8-inch shortcakes, 8 servings
- Servings
- 8
Estimated per serving (8) from USDA FoodData Central values for flour, butter, milk, heavy cream, sugar and strawberries.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Farmer’s batch makes two shortcakes. For one, halve everything and use one pan.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
The 1918 text gives no amount for the strawberries or the sugar to sweeten them, and none for the butter for the tins and for spreading. Farmer’s first edition of 1896 allowed one to one and a half boxes of berries for each cake; our 3 lb for the two cakes is a reading of that, with ½ cup sugar and 3 tablespoons butter in all. Her “hot oven” is 425°F (220°C) here, the temperature the USDA’s 1931 Home Baking gives for shortcake baked as a large sheet; her twelve minutes become 12 to 15. Her “thick cream” is heavy cream. She beats the sauce “until stiff”; we stop at soft peaks so it spreads over the berries. Keep the cream sauce cold until it goes on, and for a picnic carry the cakes, berries and cream separately, with the cream on ice, and assemble at the table. Contains wheat and milk.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Boston, 1918), Strawberry Short Cake I and Cream Sauce I