By Gil Marks

This past Wednesday, I took a city bus cross town to the Upper East Side to be interviewed live in a restaurant for a radio show. During the trip, the young woman seated next to me took out her cell phone and proceeded to hold a loud discussion. I attempted to ignore her, but I did hear her mention strawberry shortcake.
This classic dish is made from a rich biscuit dough and its greatness lies in the contrasts of textures and flavors of the simple cake, fruit, and cream -— hard and soft, moist and dry, sweet and tart, acid and cake. Shortcake proves the ideal base, as it is firm enough to stand up to the juicy berries and damp cream and absorbing only some of them without losing its identity or becoming a mushy mess.
Strawberries, a member of the rose family, are actually swollen receptacles covered with the real fruits, tiny seed-like achenes. About a dozen species of wild strawberries, dispersed by migratory birds, occurred in temperate parts of Eurasia, North America, South America west of the Andes, and Hawaii. Humans were already enjoying wild strawberries during the Neolithic period and they were among the few luxuries available to peasants in much of medieval Europe.
European strawberries, also known as ‘wood strawberries,’ are smaller, more delicate, and less productive (bearing only a few berries per plant) than American berries. Around 1750 in an unknown horticultural garden in France, a North American strawberry (F. virginiana) accidentally hybridized with a Chilean strawberry (F. chiloensis), the latter unable to fertilize itself, to produce the garden strawberry or pineapple strawberry (F. ananassa), its name reflecting a pineapple aroma. When people realized how hybridization created larger and firmer berries, they began (and continue to this day) purposely breeding them to produce larger fruits with higher yields that are disease, frost, and pest resistant, could better withstand transport, and yield more than a single crop per year. Crossing F. virginiana with an F. chiloensis from California produced berries with an extended growing period. Suddenly, berries were available outside of their traditional season around June. Today, almost all cultivated species are descended from F. ananassa and similar crosses.
Due to cultivation, modern strawberries are radically different than those of the nineteenth century, while the original flavors of the wild strawberries have been all but lost. Many cultivated varieties — such as the current California leaders, Camarosa (33%), Diamante (23%), and Ventana (9%) — are less intensely flavored and much harder (and hardier) than heirloom varieties, such as the Banner which dominated California production until 1950, and are also too frequently picked before ripening. Unlike Europe, American retailers do not have to identify the variety.
The short in short cake does not refer to size or scope. Rather it derived from a fifteenth century usage of “short” akin to crumbly. Adding a large amount of fat (called shortening) to flour coats the proteins, thereby, inhibiting the gluten strands from forming and resulting in a crumbly and tender texture. Unlike sixteenth century English biskets, short cakes were sweetened with sugar making them even more tender.
The first record of the term “short cake” and the earliest recipe for it was in the anonymous Elizabethan cookbook The Good Huswifes Handmaid for Cookerie in her kitchen (London, 1588), the second printed English cookbook: “To make short Cakes. Take wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it in an earthern pot, and stop it close, and set it in an Oven and bake it, and when it is baken, it will be full of clods, and therefore ye must searse [sift] it through a search: the flower will have as long baking as a pastie of Venison. When you have done this, take clowted Creame, or els sweet Butter, but Creame is better, then take Sugar, Cloves, Mace, and Saffron, and the yolke of an Egge for one doozen of Cakes one yolke is ynough: then put all these foresaid things together into the cream, & te[m]per the[m] al together, the{n} put the{m} to your flower and so make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your cakes, yee must bake them upon papers, after the drawing of a batch of bread.” Because this yielded crumbly cookies, the dough was baked as small cakes on parchment paper.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, Americans began adding potash and then baking soda to biscuit doughs resulting in delicate and fluffy biscuits instead of hard crumbly cakes, without the need for protracted beating. Later cooks learned how to cut the butter or lard into the flour to produce a flaky texture. Perhaps the earliest record of the evolutionary step of using a chemical leavening in biscuits was “pot-ash cake” or “handy cake,” the subject of a letter to the editor sent from “Cedar Grove, on Long Island” and dated “August 19, 1799” in the December 1799 issue of The Monthly Magazine (London), which emphasized its American origins. The New London Family Cook by Duncan MacDonald (London, 1808) and then The Cook and Housekeeper’s Complete and Universal Dictionary by Mary Eaton (Bungay, England, 1822) copied this recipe, calling them “American Pot-Ash Cakes,” and the latter noting: “American Cakes, though but little known in this country, form an article of some importance in domestic economy: they are cheap, easily made, and very nutritious.”
When Americans began substituting baking soda for potash, they referred to this adaptation as “Soda Cakes.” Several other names emerged for chemically-leavened quick breads: “soda biscuit,” first appearing around 1830; “shortcake”; and “shortening bread” -— as in the famous 1900 song by James Whitcomb Riley, “Mamma’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.” When an oven was not accessible, these light leavened biscuits were cooked in a Dutch oven or on a griddle. Subsequently, soda biscuits or short cakes were found in nearly every nineteenth century American cookbook. In particular, soda biscuits, became a hallmark of Southern cooking, the area’s soft flour not conducive for making good yeast breads.
Meanwhile, a step occurred that would elevate biscuits from the status of a mere bread into the pantheon of America’s iconic dishes — bonding American shortcakes with strawberries.
The earliest version of “Strawberry Cakes” using fresh berries was found in the July 1845 issue of The British American Cultivator (Toronto) and then in the September 1845 issue of The Ohio Cultivator (Columbus), entailing a thick unleavened cookie, split, layered with macerated strawberries, and covered with a basic sugar and egg white icing rather than whipped cream. This was a transitional stage in the development of the modern strawberry shortcake.
By the time of Jennie June’s American Cookbook by Jane Cunningham Croly (New York, 1866), the modern form of “Strawberry Shortcake” had evolved, the author noting that it was then currently chic New York restaurant fare: “Mix dough as for soda biscuit; that is to say, one quart of sifted flour, piece of butter size of an egg, two tea-spoonsful of cream of tartar, one of soda, a pinch of salt, and sweet milk to form a soft dough. Put cream of tartar in the flour, and soda in dry also, and, when thoroughly mixed, roll out half an inch thick and bake in a shallow pan fifteen or twenty minutes; have ready two quarts of fresh, fine strawberries; split the cake, place half the strawberries between and cover thickly with white sugar and cream; put the other half on the top and cover in the same way; send to the table immediately. This is the method of making at the finest city restaurants.”
In the twentieth century, many Americans, especially Northerners with little familiarity or experience with soda biscuits, developed a preference for substituting pound cake, angel food cake, or hot-milk sponge cake as the base. In the 1960s, this style reached Japan, where strawberry shortcake consisting of three layers of puffy sponge cake sandwiched with strawberries and whipped cream became the most popular of all layer cakes. In America, groceries sold packaged sponge cake cups and fingers for easy “strawberry shortcakes.”
Shortening produces a flakier and lighter cake than butter, but the two are often combined to get the textural benefit of the former and the flavor of the latter. Soft wheat flour is best for making light, fluffy biscuits, as the extra gluten in regular all-purpose flour toughens as it forms, thus restricting the gas produced by the leavening. Soft wheat flour also absorbs less liquid and needs less fat than regular all-purpose flour (thus 2 cups of hard wheat flour will require about 1 cup liquid, while that amount of liquid for soft wheat flour leaves a soggy mass). Bleached flour produces a moister, more cake-like texture than unbleached. Cream produces a more tender cake; buttermilk a lighter one with an intriguing tang. Adding some egg results in a finer, scone-like texture. Some recipes call for hard-boiled egg yolks, yielding a more crumbly texture.
Make sure that the berries are in season and sweet, as they do not ripen after being picked and are generally tasteless out of season. The small, intensely red, locally-grown berries at a farmer’s market or roadside stand are usually the most delicious ones. Any other type of berry or sliced soft fruit can be substituted for the strawberries, including nectarines, peaches, and plums. Strawberries do not ripen after being picked. They are highly perishable and have a storage life of only a few days and up to ten days at 32°F. Farmer’s markets and roadside stands typically offer more flavorful and riper berries than supermarkets. Choose bright, plump, fully red berries with bright green caps. Size is no indication of quality. Check cartons for stains and signs of moisture, indications of spoilage. Rinse with cool water just before using. Do not hull the caps until after washing.
Assemble the various parts of this dish just before serving to ensure that the textures and flavors remain distinct until they meld in your mouth. Mashing a few of the berries and mixing them with the rest helps them to adhere and stay on the cake. For an interesting and more luscious variation, fill the cake with some pastry cream along with the strawberries and reserve the whipped cream to crown the top. Just remembering how this simple but incredibly delicious treat tasted makes me want to run to the kitchen and whip up a batch again.

Strawberry Shortcakes
(About nine 2½-inch biscuits; twelve 2-inch biscuits)

2 cups (10 ounces/280 grams/480 ml) soft Southern or bleached all-purpose flour or pastry flour, measured by dip-and-sweep (or 1¼ cups (6.25 ounces/175 grams/300 ml) all-purpose flour and ¾ cup (2.75 ounces/75 grams/180 ml) cake flour)
¼ cup (1.75 ounces/50 grams/60 ml) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon (15 ml) double-acting baking powder (or 2 teaspoons (10 ml) cream of tartar and 1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking soda)
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) salt
½ cup (4 ounces/115 grams/120 ml) vegetable shortening or butter (or ¼ cup/60 ml each), chilled
About ¾ cup (6 fluid ounces/180 ml/6.375 ounces/180 grams) half-and-half or milk (or 1 large egg and ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon (135 ml) half-and-half or milk)

About 3 pints (36 ounces/1 kg/7 cups) hulled and sliced strawberries.
2 cups (16 fluid ounces/480 ml) sweetened whipped cream (1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream beaten with 1 tablespoon (15 ml) sugar and 1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla) for topping

1. Position a rack in center of oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees (220 C).
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening or butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Gradually add half-and-half or milk (or liquid mixed with egg), stirring with a fork until dough clings together.
3. Place dough on a lightly floured surface, flour hands, and knead until just manageable (6 to 10 strokes). Do not overknead. Sprinkle lightly with flour and pat into ¾-inch thickness (about a 9- by 6-inch rectangle).
4. With floured 2- to 2½-inch biscuit cutter or other sharp-edged cutter, press straight down to cut out dough. Reroll and cut out remnants.
5. Place biscuits on an ungreased (preferably parchment-lined) baking sheet, an 8-inch round baking pan, or cast-iron skillet. Bake until golden brown (about 12 minutes). Transfer to a rack and let cool for 5 minutes.
6. Split in half horizontally. Place bottoms on serving plates, spoon about 1/3 cup fruit over top, place biscuit tops over berries, if desired, spoon another 1/3 cup berries over top, and top with 3 to 4 tablespoons whipped cream.

VARIATIONS:
Buttermilk Shortcake: Cream produces a more tender cake; buttermilk a lighter one with an intriguing tang. Substitute ¾ cup buttermilk for the cream, reduce the baking powder to 2 teaspoons, and add ½ teaspoon baking soda.