Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake was very popular when I was little and Mother of Ken really disliked her and didn't want me to have a lot of Strawberry Shortcake-themed stuff.  It's too bad that this annoying little creature ruined the good name of a delicious dessert.  That doesn't mean I don't eat strawberry shortcake, of course, but I always think of this when I do:

I was looking for something completely unrelated today and came across a recipe for "Old fashioned Strawberry Cinnamon Shortcake" that I had torn out of the Penzey's catalog a few months ago.  Since I just bought some fresh strawberries this morning, I decided to give the recipe a try.

Start by preparing your strawberries as you normally would for shortcake with a little sugar.  I just cut up a few strawberries since I only needed a single serving.

For the shortcake, you need the following:

2 c. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/3 c. sugar

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/3 c. butter

1 egg

1-4 tbsp. milk

2 tbsp. butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Grease a 9 inch round cake pan.  In a large bowl or mixer, blend the butter and egg well.  Add the flour, baking powder, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon (I would also add 1/4 tsp. - 1/2 tsp. salt) and begin mixing.   Then, add the milk, starting with 2 tbsp., until it forms a slightly sticky dough.  Press the dough evenly into the cake pan and brush with melted butter.

Bake at 425 for 12-14 minutes and then let it cool briefly.  You can either cut a piece for an individual serving and split it in half or remove the whole cake from the pan and split it in half.

I layered my split shortcake with fresh whipped cream and strawberries until I ended up with this:

Very good--the addition of the nutmeg and cinnamon is just enough to make it taste different from a traditional strawberry shortcake.  I think it takes less time to make this cake than it takes to open a store-bought pound cake or Angel Food cake and it is exponentially better.

Thanks to Cynthia Field and Penzey's for sharing this recipe with the rest of us.  I'll be filing this one away for later...