Strawberry Shortcake Sliders

Ever notice how people from big families eat fast? That’s because if you finish your food first, you’ll be assured of seconds. In our family we kids perfected the art of eating quickly with strawberry shortcake.

If there was one food we dreamt of, fought over, couldn’t get enough of, it was strawberry shortcake. Made with biscuits. And real whipped cream. Sigh. There is no more of a perfect dessert than this.

Which is why, when my mother asked me to make something for her book club meeting, and with big, juicy, sweet strawberries showing up in the markets all over town (even at a street vendor on the corner of my block), that I couldn’t wait to make these mini shortcakes.

I don’t take credit for the idea, or the name for that matter. We were served mini strawberry shortcakes at an event for Ruth Reichl when she was in town recently, and my pals Garrett and Amber took one look at them and called them “sliders”.

Why a slider? Because like a burger slider, you can hold them in your hand to eat. They are perfect little finger food shortcakes.

Shortcake biscuits are typically very crumbly; the crumbles just absorb all of that extra juice from the strawberries. But with sliders, you don’t want them to crumble.

So the solution is to add an egg to dough, to give the biscuits a little more structure, and to knead them just a few turns more than you would normally.

Strawberry Shortcake Sliders Recipe

Ingredients

Biscuits

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp baking powder*
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 Tbsp (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter (if using salted, skip the salt in dry ingredients), cut into small cubes and chilled (freezer for 15 minutes or longer)
• 7/8 cup (that's one cup minus 2 tablespoons) heavy whipping cream
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Strawberries

• 2 baskets of fresh strawberries, rinsed, stems removed and discarded, sliced (1/8" to 1/4" thick)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Whipped Cream

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

*Make sure your baking powder is less than 6 months old or it may be flat and your biscuits will have a hard time rising. If you don't have baking powder you can combine two teaspoons cream of tartar (a dry acid) with one teaspoon baking soda (a dry base) for the same effect.

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