My Sweet Biscuit Strawberry Shortcake has a sweet and flaky biscuit, ripe juicy berries, and a luscious whipped yogurt cream, for the best shortcake you'll ever eat!
What is Shortcake?
My Sweet Biscuit Strawberry Shortcake is just one (extremely yummy) variation in the wide world of shortcakes. Technically speaking, a shortcake is a biscuit, or small cake, covered in fruit, usually paired with ice cream or whipped cream. Japan and parts of the U.S. use a sponge cake, or even angel food cake, but I grew up in the South. And in the South, it's all about the biscuit!
Some people use a standard biscuit, some prefer a drop biscuit, but I like a sweet version of my classic Buttermilk Biscuit with a bit of crunchy sugar on top. I've always loved shortcake, and I'll enjoy it in any of its forms. My Grandma Olga Mae used to serve strawberry shortcake after Sunday supper, using leftover biscuits from breakfast. The Boy's aunt used to always buy a strawberry shortcake cake from a local bakery to serve at Summer cookouts. And my oldest daughter always requests shortcake for her birthday in September.
Well, with all that shortcake love going on, I thought that I should be able to eat shortcake for breakfast as well! I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want, but I wanted to make a shortcake that all of you would feel good about eating any time of the day. This is it!
Ingredients
Most of the ingredients for these sweet biscuits are the same as in my classic Buttermilk Biscuits, with just a few adjustments:
- Granulated Sugar Because this is a sweet biscuit, we add 3 tablespoons of sugar. It won't taste "sweet", but it won't taste too savory either. A perfect balance
- Salt I decreased the salt from my classic biscuit recipe in half for this recipe. Just half a teaspoon to enhance the other flavors. Remember, when used properly, salt doesn't taste "salty", it turns up the volume on the other flavors.
- Butter Cold. Cold. Ice cold butter 🥶 The high heat of your oven hits the cold, cold butter. The butter releases steam that pushes up and out of the dough, creating flaky layers as a fabulous side effect. I love science!
- Buttermilk Buttermilk helps to create an overall taller, tastier, flakier, fluffier biscuit. Who doesn’t want that? Also, because the fruit and the cream are sweet, the subtle tang from the buttermilk helps balance all the flavors perfectly.
The whipped Greek yogurt Cream is simple to make, and contains only four ingredients:
- Greek yogurt I recommend using full fat Greek yogurt, not low fat or nonfat, and not regular yogurt. You need the thickness and fat content to really whip this up extra creamy, and the signature tang of Greek yogurt to really make the flavor pop.
- Heavy cream When you whip everything together, the cream will act just like it does when you make whipped cream. It will fluff up and give the cream a luscious texture.
- Granulated sugar Just enough to add a touch of sweetness!
- Kosher salt The tiniest of pinches, because a little bit of salt makes everything taste a little bit better.
Finally, the fruit topping couldn't be simpler:
- Fruit of your choice I will always want strawberries, but after that I choose whatever is ripe and juicy. Today that was early Summer blueberries!
- Granulated sugar Just a couple of tablespoons will sweeten the fruit and bring some of their juices out to develop a sauce.
- Lemon juice Just a squeeze for acidity, otherwise everything would be too sweet. It's always about balance!
Instructions
Before you start making your sweet biscuits, you'll want to make your Greek yogurt cream and get your fruit started. They can sit in the refrigerator until you're ready to eat.
- Slice and mix your fruit I like to quarter my strawberries and, unless they are huge, leave the other berries whole. You can slice larger fruit any way you prefer, just don't go too thin or small otherwise they might get mushy.
- Make the Greek yogurt cream I really didn't want to overcomplicate this by whipping things separately and folding things into other things... so, I just put everything into a large bowl and whipped until all the cream cheese was smooth and fully mixed with the yogurt and the heavy cream.
Time to make the biscuits. Some people are completely intimidated by biscuit making, but I assure you, it's going to be fine. Make them often enough and you can do it with your eyes closed. (But don't.)
- Measure out your dry ingredients in a medium bowl and toss very cold, cubed butter into the mix. Using your fingers, or a pastry cutter, mix the butter and flour together until it looks crumbly. You will probably still have some bigger chunks of butter, but that's fine. If you'd rather not get your hands dirty yet (you will have to later!), toss all the dry ingredients and butter cubes into a food processor and give it 4-5 quick pulses. Pour it out into a bowl.
- Add in very cold buttermilk. Using a spatula or wooden spoon (I use a Danish dough whisk because I'm fancy like that) mix the dough together. You'll have some dry stuff at the bottom, and that's to be expected. It will all come together, don't worry!
- Flour your hands. Just dunk them in the flour. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and bring it together with your floured hands by pressing down and pulling it together into a rough square. Some dry bits will for sure remain, but not for long. I don't like to use a rolling pin, because I feel it works the dough too much, leading to tough biscuits. Just use your hands.
- Using a bench scraper, or large knife, cut your square into quarters. Stack them, one on top of the other, into one tall dough tower. Squash it down and pull the dough together again into a flat square. Do it 3 more times, just like this. This is building your flaky layers!
- Time to cut biscuits. Let's make this easy: Using your knife, cut your biscuits into 6-8 pieces and lay them on a parchment lined sheet pan. Chill for 15 minutes.
- Brush tops of the biscuits with egg wash and sprinkle with granulated sugar or fancy sparkling sugar, if you have some. Bake at 450° for 15-18 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown. Let cool while you gather everyone together and make coffee.
Serving Breakfast Shortcakes
Now it's time to enjoy the "fruits" of your not-so-laborious, labor. Open up a sweet biscuit (you can pull or cut it open), lay the bottom on a small plate, spoon on a dollop of your Greek yogurt cream, lay your fruit over the cream, place the biscuit top on like a sparkly hat, garnish with mint leaves, if desired, and eat until your eyes roll back into your head 🙄
Looking for more sweet breakfast recipes? Try one of these!
- Lemon Ricotta Blueberry Swirl Waffles
- Not So Basic Buttermilk Muffins: Better than Basic
- Orange Marmalade French Toast
- Chai Spiced Waffles with Maple Cinnamon Apples
- Cinnamon-Cardamom French Toast
Sweet Biscuit Strawberry Shortcake
Ingredients
Mixed Berries
- 1 pint (475 g) strawberries
- 1 pint (475 g) blueberries
- 3 tbs (36 g) sugar
- ½ lemon juiced
Whipped Greek Yogurt Cream
- ½ cup (120 g) heavy cream
- 2 tablespoon (24 g) granulated sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (200 g) Greek yogurt
Sweet Buttermilk Biscuits
- 2 cup (240 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 3 tbs (36 g) sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoon (112 g) unsalted butter cut into small cubes and chilled
- ¾ cup (180 g) buttermilk cold
- 1 large egg whisked with a tablespoon of water, for egg wash
- Coarse or granulated sugar for tops of biscuits before baking
Instructions
Preparing the Fruit Topping
- Before starting on your fruit, dice up your butter and let chill in the fridge while you prepare for biscuit time.Slice strawberries in quarters and place in a medium bowl. Add blueberries or your fruit of choice. Add the juice from half a lemon and sprinkle sugar over top. Stir together and set aside on the counter or in the fridge.
Making the Whipped Greek Yogurt Cream
- Add heavy cream, sugar, and salt to a medium bowl. Using a whisk or a hand mixer, whip to soft peaks. Add yogurt and continue mixing until peaks hold when whisk or beaters are lifted from the bowl. Cover and chill until ready to use.
Making the Sweet Biscuits
- Preheat oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
- Toss the chilled butter cubes into the dry ingredients and, using a pastry cutter or your fingers, mix in the cold butter until you have a mixture of flat pieces and crumbly bits of butter mixed into the flour. This part can also be done in a food processor. Pulse the dry ingredients a few times to mix, add in the cold cubed butter, and pulse 4-5 times, or until the butter is broken up into pea sized pieces.
- With butter and flour mixture in a large bowl, make a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the cold buttermilk. Gently work it together with a wooden spoon, or rubber spatula, until you have a fairly uniform loose dough.There will still be dry spots, and that’s normal.
- Dump it all out onto a flour dusted counter or cutting board. Using your hands, gently bring it all together into a rough square by patting it down.
- With a bench scraper or knife, cut your dough square into four smaller squares. Stack the squares of biscuit dough on top of each other. Smush it all down, and bring it into a square again. Repeat this cutting and stacking procedure 3 more times. You're makin' layers, baby!
- Pat the dough into a rectangle at least ½ to ¾ inch thick. Use a knife or your bench scraper to cut the dough into 6-8 pieces (your choice). Place on your parchment lined baking sheet and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- Brush the top of each biscuit lightly with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 450° for 15-18 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.
Assembly
- Split open a biscuit (it should pull apart easily) and place it on a plate. Place a big ol' dollop of the yogurt cream on the bottom piece and cover with a large spoonful of your fruit. Place the biscuit top on like a sparkly hat and enjoy!
Nutrition
The nutritional and caloric information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It does not assert or suggest that readers should or should not count calories, and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s or doctor’s counseling.
Flo says
The kids helped me make this . I am no baker and the recipe was easy to follow and the biscuits came out flaky!
Thank you !
Cynthia says
That’s great! Good biscuits make people happy!
Kylie Solis says
These are the sweet biscuits. I grew up making bisquick and strawberry and whip cream “strawberry shortcake” with my dad, and after losing him I wanted something similar. This is it. So delicious. And this is definitely a recipe anyone could make; don’t be scared 😊
Cynthia says
I’m so glad that these brought back such a happy memory! They remind me of the biscuit strawberry shortcakes I made with my grandma 🥰