With strawberries coming into season soon I thought I would run a recipe from my first article for the Gazette, more than five years ago. Let's try this recipe again, good old fashioned strawberry shortcake.

Most people today are more familiar with the little round sponge cakes sold near the fresh berries in the produce section of any supermarket. This is not what Grandma would call shortcake. Nor would she have used the aerosol 'whipped cream' to top her dessert. Try the following and step back in time. See if Grandma might have had the better strawberry shortcake.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender till it is the size of small peas. Add milk and stir till dough forms a ball then knead a few times. On a lightly greased cookie sheet pat the dough out to ½ inches thick and about 8 inches around. Bake at 450˚ for 15 minutes. Cool and split in to two layers like you would to butter a biscuit. While the shortcake is baking, slice the strawberries into a bowl and stir in sugar to sweeten to your liking. Let them sit just long enough to get the berries nice and juicy. The whipped cream should be very cold so I pour it into a bowl and set it into the freezer along with the beaters for several minutes to get well chilled. Beat until foamy and sift in the 3 tablespoons powdered sugar as you continue to beat. Add ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract. Beat till it will just hold a peak when the beaters are pulled out. Now place the sweetened berries and some whipped cream over the bottom layer of shortcake. Top with the second layer and pour over the rest of the berries and garnish with more whipped cream. Cut like a cake into individual servings, about 8.

Grandma would have used whipped cream that was beaten only stiff enough to just hold a peak. She also would not have left the shortcake to cool. It would have been split and buttered then layered while still warm. These may also be cut with a biscuit cutter to make individual servings.