STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

WITH A VERY VERY QUICK SWEET BISCUIT

My sister was born in June.  A summer birthday which always seemed unfair as I was born in the fall and birthdays were most often on school days.  She got beach parties and bathing suits, summer clothes and strawberry shortcake.  Appropriate though, as my fall personality suited the dark chocolate birthday cake my mother always made, her character was, and is today, of strawberries and whipped cream.

At some point, as kids, a friend gifted my sister a strawberry shortcake doll for her birthday.  She loved that doll.  It had green and white striped leggings and a pink strawberry bonnet.   It perfumed the room with an artificial strawberry smell sweet and thick.  And oh how my mother hated that doll.  One day it just disappeared.  My sister moved on but I know the memory lingers with her…..and me too as I remember it swinging from the edge of her bed, strawberry smells ripe in the air like a tube of lip smackers strawberry pink lip stick

It is said that strawberries can heal depression and whiten teeth.  They promote happiness hormones, clear skin, heal blood.  The voluptuous little berry simply exudes happiness…..in color and smell…..and of course the delicate flavor, like candy picked straight from the earth.  Then add to that a lovely sweet biscuit and vanilla whipped cream…..life is nothing short of summer bliss!

This is another family recipe.  In a world of fancy, complicated food this falls in line with your grandmother’s pie dough or a chocolate chip cookie recipe off the back of the chocolate chip packaging.   This is cottage shortcake at its finest.  A savory biscuit recipe made sweet with added sugar.  It is quick and easy, deeply satisfying and country comfort delicious.  Nothing to it really….just some hands in dough, juicy strawberries and piles upon piles of whip cream!