Strawberry Shortcakes
3 ½ cups AP flour, plus more for surface (15.75 oz)

1/3 c. + 1 T. granulated sugar SEPERATED (2.36 oz)

4 t. baking powder

1 t. fine sea salt

 

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces (6 oz)

1 large orange, zested and juiced

1 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing (8.4 oz)

½ cup whole milk (4 oz)

_______________________________________

2 T. turbinado sugar

_______________________________________

2 pints strawberries, hulled and quartered lengthwise

2 ½ c. whipped cream

DAY ONE

1. In a heavy duty mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, add flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt and mix on low speed to combine.

2. Add butter and zest, and mix on low until mixture resembles coarse meal, about 2 minutes. Add cream and milk and increase speed to medium; mix until dough comes together.

3. Transfer dough to lightly floured surface, lightly knead a few times, and shape into a rectangle about ¾” thick. Cut out dough circles using a 3” round cutter and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
   DAY TWO

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

5. Lightly brush tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. 

6. Bake until shortcakes are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool (can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days)

7. Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine strawberries, orange juice, and remaining 1 T. granulated sugar. Gently stir together. Set aside. (TEACHER WILL DO THIS STEP)

8. To serve, halve shortcakes horizontally with serrated knife. Place bottom halves on individual serving plates and top each with a dollop of whipped cream, some berries, then another dollop of whipped cream. Top with remaining shortcake halves.
   
   Fresh Whipped Cream           Yield 4 cups

2 cups heavy cream

¼ cup sugar

1 t. vanilla (optional)

Method

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine heavy cream and sugar. With either a hand or stand mixer, beat mixture together on a lower level. After a minute, increase the speed and continue to beat mixture until very soft peaks form.

2. If you are using whipped cream as frosting, beat it for an additional 30-60 seconds or until soft peaks form.

3. If you are using vanilla, stir in by hand with a whisk at this point.

4. Best if used immediately. Can be stored for up to 24 hours in refrigerator.

A week before we did this lab in class, I decided I would be making a nice meal for Valentine's Day to show my parents that my brother and I loved them. Eating strawberries is about as appealing as eating charcoal to me, but my parents and my brother love them more than anything.

So I got the recipe for strawberry shortcake from Ms. Wilson and went to the store on a walk home from school a few days before Thursday, the day we were planning on, to pick up strawberries, oranges, and a REV roll-up for my father's lunch. After all of this was put in the fridge safely, my brother and I got to work.

The screw-ups started when we first began with all of the ingredients. My brother, Trevor, was in charge of measuring and combining the dry ingredients. The sugar, baking soda, and salt were fine, but when it was time for the salt, there was a little mix-up. The recipe, it turned out, was in units set for a scale. I didn't really take this into account, and neither did my brother, so he took out a small shot cup to measure... in fluid ounces. I didn't figure this out until later, so we'll get to that. We put all the dry ingredients together and set them aside for the next day. We were also making waffles for breakfast, so we put together the dry ingredients for that.

We mixed up the recipe a lot, which probably did mess up and cause the results we ended up with.

The same night we put together all the dry ingredients, we tried our hands at creating the whipping cream. Again, we were totally ignorant, because we thought that heavy whipping cream meant cool whip. We tried the whipping cream, but it was more like whipped goo. We couldn't even try to squirt it out of anything because it was so much a liquid. The day before, when I had gotten the recipe, Ms. Wilson said to make sure we had soft peaks, but it was just dripping, so I knew that was wrong. I also figured it was wrong when we used a whole container of cool whip. We put it in the fridge, and I prayed it would thicken, but it never did.

The next morning, we made the waffles and tried to squirt some sugary liquid of what we had made on them. The final product for the whipping cream attempt wasn't awful tasting, just weirdly textured. The waffles ended up well, and we went to school stressing about the time restrictions we had that night.

When we got home from school, Trevor and I got to work and made even more mistakes, which were earth-shattering at the moment, but now I see them as hilarious. We made pasta as the meal, and that ended up fine, though the alfredo sauce separated, but that's a different story. The strawberry shortcake, however, was a big mess.

I got all the ingredients together again to finish up the strawberry shortcake. The orange zesting was something I had never even tried, and I have a feeling I did it very wrong. I took the orange, washed it, an used our huge cheese grater to sheer off bigger chunks than needed of orange peel. I got all the other ingredients except the heavy whipping cream, because by now I had found out that cool whip was not synonymous with it. So I quickly googled 'heavy whipping cream substitutes' and came up with a milk-and-flour mixture that did not look quite as I had expected. I combined all of the combined dry ingredients and combined liquid ingredients in our large blue mixer. I mixed until the only chunks were the orange bits.

When I tried to take out the mixture to knead it, it was like trying to knead vomit. It had the gooey texture of vomit, and didn't smell fantastic, either. It also looked like it, and it made me want to vomit myself. I was on the verge of a breakdown from all of the messes I had made when just trying to show my parents we loved them.

My dad has always been the cook in our family, and from here he tried to work out how much flour we needed to add, because he could clearly see that that was the issue. There was no real substance there. He figured it all out as best he could through a very complex math equation that made me dizzy. From there I kneaded the dough and made the small cakes, but I think all the extra processing of the mixture overdeveloped the gluten, and the end product was NOTHING like the spongey cakes that my babysitting client, Jack, gets in a little strawberry shortcake kit.

The end product was tough, like eating the scones a few weeks before. We added the strawberries, but all that could be tasted, at least to me, was the orange peel chunks. It looked like cheese bicuits, again because of the orange bits. The added "whipping cream" made it look like a milk volcano with chunks of red lava spewing all over. There was no distinct smell, and the end product was very disappointing.

I think the reason the end product was so awful was because of the lack of communication and underestimating the importance of picking through the recipe with a fine tooth comb. The huge mistakes along the way made this Valentine's Day very memorable. I will probably never want to make or eat strawberry shortcake again. I really wish I would have just made cookies or mint brownies as I had originally planned, but making this dish taught me how I need to make sure I have the EXACT things the recipe may call for before I even consider making it. I am glad my dad was there to help save me, and I'm very glad I had a "soux chef" (Trevor) there with me, too.