To inspire people with a passion for baking, Frances Quinn, The Great British Bake Off winner and Ambassador for Breast Cancer Haven, has created a scrumptious Strawberry Shortcake recipe.
For a little effort, and the price of a slice of cake, you can bake for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. KitchenAid has partnered with Breast Cancer Haven for 18 years and is proud to have raised over £280,000. Breast Cancer Haven is a British breast cancer charity which helps people deal with the physical and emotional side effects of breast cancer.
Ingredients
For the cake:
50g butter, softened
50g caster sugar
1 egg (room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g self-raising flour
1 tsp warm water
To decorate:
50g strawberry jam without chunks
50ml double cream
½ tbsp icing sugar
A few drops of vanilla extract
9 shortcake biscuits
1 medium and 2 small strawberries
About 1 tsp freeze-dried strawberry pieces
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4.
- 10cm round, deep, loose-bottomed tin (pork-pie size), greased and fully lined.
- Beat the butter and sugar together in a KitchenAid Artisan 4.8L Stand Mixer for 5–10 minutes until very light, pale and creamy. Lightly beat the egg with the vanilla extract. Gradually add the egg to the butter and sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. Sift the flour into the mixture and fold in until just combined, then gently fold in the warm water. Scrape the cake mixture into the prepared tin and spread it out level with a spatula.
- Bake for 20–25 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing the cake and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Use a long, serrated knife, to slice the cake horizontally into two equal layers. Place the bottom cake layer on your stand. Spread a few teaspoons of jam over the cut surface. Place the other cake layer on top. Put the cream in a bowl with the icing sugar and vanilla extract, and whip until the cream holds soft to medium peaks. Spoon the cream on top of the cake and smooth it out with a palette knife, creating a slightly textured finish.
- Spread some jam over the back of each shortcake biscuit to act as ‘glue’: spread the jam over three-quarters of the biscuit, leaving the top quarter uncovered. Press the biscuits around the side of the cake, with the un-jammed sections uppermost, to give a clean finish. The 9 biscuits won’t be wedged tightly up against one another: there should be a few millimetres between them, creating neat spaces for cutting the cake into even slices.
- Decorate the top of the cake with the three strawberries and scatter the freeze-dried strawberry pieces over the top.
* Strawberry Shortcake from Quinntessential Baking by Frances Quinn (Bloomsbury Publishing). Photography © Georgia Glynn-Smith
