Any-Berry ShortCAKE

My favorite dessert (at least for this summer)

I have been a fan of strawberry shortcake for as long as I can remember. Like all children, I had many favorite desserts, but if you had asked me what my favorite dessert was on any given day, there was I high chance I would have said strawberry shortcake.

Until this month, I hadn't had shortcake in a while. When I ate this one, I wondered why I ever stopped. This shortcake is scrumptious, so delicious it might again be my favorite dessert, at least my favorite dessert of this summer.

The shortcake is crumbly, buttery, tender and light. The whipped cream is soft yet structured, with a rich vanilla flavor. All the berries where I live are soabsurdlydelicious right now, and are hard to improve upon, so these are just gently macerated to coax out their natural sweetness and floral notes.

I was inspired by some photos from my vintage cookbooks to make this shortcake as one big cake. While these recipes are for a sponge cake, the one below is for a drop biscuit with the addition of streusel mixed in. The texture of the streusel oh so nicely complements the whole thing adding these sweet-salty morsels.

In addition to the streusel crumbs, this recipe has a few more tricks up its sleeve: one is to get a really light and fluffy crumb, this recipe uses whipped cream to ensure added lightness in the cake (inspired by my strawberry brown sugar and whipped cream cake recipe from last year).

While we’re on the topic of the pluses, the shortcake comes together very quickly, under 45 minutes of active time and doesn’t require anything to be made in advance.

There are various formulas below for macerating strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries. Pick whichever one you want. If you prefer more tart desserts, I would suggest the raspberry version (inspired by the raspberry shortcake from the vintage cookbook!). Although resident recipe cross-tester Cara thinks sour cherries would also be delicious, and I second this belief.

Ingredients