Easy Strawberry Shortcake Recipe (Gluten Free!)

(soft music) - Today, we're making one of my favorite warm weather desserts. I'm going to show you how to make an easy delicious strawberry shortcake recipe. And as always, it can be made gluten free. (upbeat music) Hi, there I'm Nicki Sizemore. Welcome to my kitchen, welcome back to my channel. So when I was growing up my dad and I would always make strawberry shortcakes in the summer, like every weekend. And we would use those little spongy package cakes that you'd buy that could last for like probably years on the shelf. I cherish those memories. I do not cherish those cakes any longer. Now I make them from scratch and you guys aren't going to believe how easy these are to make. You don't need any special equipment. As I mentioned, you can make them gluten free and nobody will have a clue. They are tender and flaky and they've got this sweet almond flavor that pairs so perfectly with strawberries. Be sure to stay tuned because I'm going to show you not only how to serve them for dessert, but also for breakfast. First thing we're going to do is measure out the dry ingredients. So you need two cups of I'm using a gluten free all-purpose flour. You can use a regular all-purpose flower if you're not gluten free. And then we're going to add some almond flour. Now the almond flour is really important because it gives these short cakes such a tender, flaky texture, baking powder and half teaspoon, a fine sea salt. And we'll just whisk these together. Sometimes when you buy almond flour it is really, really clumpy. And if that's the case, just get in there with your fingers and make sure that there's no clumps of almond flour. This actually looks pretty good. You need six tablespoons of cold butter. And this is key because that cold butter is going to create little flakes throughout the scones and help them rise get them tender and flaky. And now here's the secret. We're going to grate the butter using a cheese grater right into the flower mixture. If you don't have something like this you can just use a box mixer and then add the graded butter. So at this point, what you want to do is pop this whole bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes. That's going to ensure that the butter stays really, really, really cold cause that is key for the flaky shortcakes I'll do that. We'll whisk together the wet ingredients and we'll throw it all together. All right, for the wet ingredients, you just need an egg, two thirds of a cup of milk, third of a cup of sugar and some almond extract, which I just love. And that's it. (upbeat music) I'm going to grab the dry ingredients from the freezer and we will finish these up, alright. Our bowls nice and cold. So now that that butter is super cold. You're going to get in there with your hands and toss it in the flower. And this is going to really evenly incorporate that butter into the shortcake mixture, create those little pockets of buttery steam for the wet ingredients over top. Actually I'm going to make a little, well here. We're going to start to incorporate the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients and they don't want to overwork this dough. So just kind of work it slowly. If you overwork the dough, you're going to end up with top short cakes and we want them to be nice and tender. Once it's mostly worked together, it's okay if you see little packets of flour here we're going to turn it out onto a piece of parchment paper so that we can form the scones. So just lightly flower your parchment and then transfer that right out. All right. So all I'm doing is patting the dough with my hands and I'm going to pat it into a one inch thick square. Don't even need a rolling pin. It's actually better not to use a rolling pin because we want to keep the dough really, really tender. I had actually a pastry friend when I went to culinary school and she's the one who first taught me how to make scones. She always would be like you've got to pat it down with love. So just pat your dough with love. We are going to cut this into nine squares. I'm using a bench scraper. You could use a sharp knife, if that's what you have. I use my bench scraper all the time. I'll link to it below, if you want to check it out. (upbeat music) If it starts to stick, just flower the bench scraper or your knife, all right, that's it. Let's get a clean baking sheet. You don't have to make squares by the way you could cut this into rounds if you prefer. You do want to space them out a little bit. They will expand. If your kitchen is warm I suggest popping these in the fridge for about five minutes just to make sure they stay nice and cold. I don't want these to warm up too much. So I'm just going to go ahead and brush them. This is just one egg that I added a splash of water, teaspoon of water. And we're going to brush the shortcakes with the egg wash and this is going to help them turn nice gold and brown. Now one last step, not quite done yet. We're going to sprinkle the top with some Coarse Turbinado sugar or a Demerara sugar. And then last one, not least this is optional but you can add some sliced almonds to the top. And that just lets people know that these are almond flavored short cakes. All right, these are good to go. We're going to bake them in a 400 degree oven. They only take about 15 to 17 minutes. You just want to make sure they're nice and golden on top. At this point you can actually freeze these unbaked shortcakes freeze them in a single layer and then once they're completely frozen transfer them to an Eric type container. Then you can bake them off, straight from the freezer and have homemade short cakes at a moment's notice. Let the short cakes cool completely. And then let's serve. Going to take two. I'll show you two different ways you can serve them. So to cut them in half, I just take a little serrated knife. This is actually a steak knife and just cut them in half like this. It's easiest to do this when they're flat on the board, this is called a bagel cut. (upbeat music) So remember I said, you can serve these for breakfast. Well, this is how you do it. Spread them with softened butter and your favorite jam. I actually like to use my homemade strawberry sauce. This is a three ingredient straw sauce using frozen strawberries. This is the ultimate breakfast with a hot cup of tea or a cup of coffee. It's like an almond scone. Now for dessert, let's build that strawberry shortcake. I'm going to start with some more of that strawberry jam on the bottom. Top that with whipped cream. Then I like to do some fresh strawberries over top. The lid back on can serve it like this or you can really take it over the top with a little bit more whipped cream and fresh berries. All right, let's give it a taste. I wish you could see how tender these shortcakes are. They just kind of like fall apart under your fork. Mm, dad, these will always remind me of you but I got to tell you those short cakes are so much better than the ones we used to eat. Got that subtle almond flavor and then the strawberry jam and then that fresh whipped cream and the fresh berries. This is truly one of my favorite summertime desserts. If you like it, if you feel inspired, please let me know. Drop a comment below. Don't forget to liken subscribe. I'm Nicki Sizemore, this is from scratch fast. I'll see you next time. (bright upbeat music)