National Strawberry Shortcake Day

Today, Tuesday 14th June 2022 is National Strawberry Shortcake Day.

The children at Play Out Ipswich have been very busy keen bakes. The children weighed ingredients and had several conversations around where eggs and flour come from.

We would like to share the recipe with you.

You will need:

• 350g self-raising flour , plus extra for dusting
• 100g butter , cold, cubed
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod , seeds scraped
• 100ml milk , warmed
• 1 egg , plus a little extra beaten egg for glazing
• squeeze lemon juice

For the topping:

• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• 227g tub clotted cream

Step 1

Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7 and lightly flour a baking sheet. Put the flour, butter, sugar, half of the vanilla seeds and ¼ tsp salt into the bowl of a food processor, then pulse until fine. Tip into a large bowl. Beat the milk, egg and a good squeeze of lemon together, then tip into the bowl and bring together with a knife, using a cutting action, until you have a clumpy dough. Finally bring together with your hands if you need to.

Step 2

Lightly flour the work surface, tip the dough onto it, then quickly shape into a smooth-ish disc. Using a rolling pin, pat out to 2cm thick. Cut out 8 rounds with a smooth 7cm cutter (you’ll need to pinch together the trimmings). Glaze just the tops with beaten egg, transfer to the floured sheet, then bake for 10-12 mins until risen and golden, and they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.

Step 3

Beat the remaining vanilla seeds and icing sugar into the clotted cream. It will get runnier at first, but keep beating and it will thicken again. To serve, slice the very top from each shortcake to give a flat surface, then spoon over about 1 tsp jam. Top with a good dollop of the vanilla clotted cream and finish with the strawberries.

Happy baking! we would love to see your creations. Please email them to; enquiries@play-out.co.uk 🙂