Strawberry Shortcake, Photo: Shauna Ahern, www.glutenfreegirl.com

Shauna James Ahern is Gluten-Free Girl, and writes the blog Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.  This is one of her recipes, adapted from one she found in Cristina Ferrare’s cookbook Big Bowl of Love.

Read Shauna’s complete post about this recipe.

After months of working on shortcakes, with recipes from some of my favorite cookbooks turning out fine but not flaky, I was thrilled to find this one emerging from our oven. It’s a sweet, slightly crumby biscuit, with enough gravitas to hold a tumble of sugared strawberries without falling apart, yet light enough to disappear on the teeth.

And we owe this one to Cristina Ferrare .

The keys to these shortcakes? Cold butter. Working deftly and not over-handling the dough. Having a biscuit cutter and cutting straight down instead of twisting into the dough. And mostly, breathing into these and remembering why you are making them. Feed your family. It’s strawberry shortcake.

Ingredients

• 315 grams Aherns’ All Purpose flour mix (recipe below)
• 1 teaspoon psyllium husk powder
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoons baking powder
• 3 tablespoons organic cane sugar
• 115 grams (1 US stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 1/3 cup whole yogurt
• 2/3 cup cold buttermilk (if you can’t do buttermilk, check this post )
• flour for dusting
• 2 tablespoons melted butter

Method

1. Preparing to bake. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease a large cast-iron pan with butter. (If you don’t have a cast iron pan, may we suggest you get one? In the meantime, you can try the largest skillet you have.)
2. Combining the dry ingredients. Combine the flour, psyllium powder (if using), salt, baking powder, and sugar. I like to put them in the food processor and let it run for a few minutes to aerate the flours. You can also use a whisk and bowl.
3. Working the butter into the flour. Put the butter cubes into the bowl of the food processor. Pulse the ingredients together, about 7 times, until the butter chunks are about the size of lima beans.
4. (You can also work the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or your fingers, if you prefer.)
5. Finishing the dough. Move the flour mixture to a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the ingredients. Mix together the yogurt and 1/3 cup of the buttermilk. Stir the liquids with a rubber spatula, moving in gentle circular motions, incorporating the flour as you go. The final dough should just hold together, with all the ingredients moist. If there is a bit of flour left on the sides of the bowl, add a dribble more of the buttermilk, then combine, then a dribble more if necessary. If the dough grows too wet, don’t fret about it. Just add a bit more flour. You’re looking for a shaggy dough, not a smooth round.
6. Sprinkle a little flour on a clean board. Turn out the dough on the board and sprinkle with just a touch more flour. Fold the dough in half, bringing the back part of the dough toward you. Pat the dough into an even round. fold the dough in half again and pat. this should make the dough fairly even. If not, you can fold the dough a third time. Pat out the dough to a 1-inch thickness.
7. Cutting the shortcakes. Dip a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter into a bit of flour and push it straight down into the dough, starting from the outside edges. Do not twist the biscuit cutter. Cut out the remaining biscuits. Working quickly, pat any remaining scraps into another 1-inch thick dough and cut the last biscuit.
8. Move the biscuits to the prepared cast-iron pan, nudging them up against each other. If you nestle the shortcakes alongside each other, edges touching, you will have taller shortcakes after baking. (They have nowhere to go but up!)
9. Baking the shortcakes. Slide the skillet into the oven and bake the shortcakes for 6 minutes. Rotate the skillet 180 degrees and continue baking until the shortcakes are firm and light golden brown, about another 6 to 8 minutes. remove the skillet from the oven and brush the tops of the shortcakes with the melted butter. let them rest for 10 minutes, then remove them from the pan gently. Split open the shortcakes and serve with strawberries.

Feeds 6.

Ahern’s All Purpose baking Flour Mix from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef

When asked why all their baking recipes are weighed–and in grams–Shauna wrote on her blog:

It’s so much more precise.*  And do you know what that means? Recipes work.

Someone wrote to me a few months ago and said, “Can’t you just put your recipes in cups? I don’t need my recipes to be perfect like you do.” Let me make this clear — I’m not doing this to make my recipes perfect. (They’re not.) We give you recipes in grams because we want you to have cookies you love. Period.

So people. Get used to it. You’re going to have to start baking by weight.

OUR ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR MIX

We’ve done a lot of work so you don’t have to do it.

We have an all-purpose mix on this site already, and many of you have kindly written to us to say how much you love it. Thank you.

We’re constantly tinkering around here, as you might imagine, so we have a slightly modified version for these cookies (and in general).

Do you have a pen? Write this down.

• 200 grams superfine brown rice flour
• 150 grams sorghum flour
• 50 grams potato flour
• 250 grams sweet rice flour
• 150 grams potato starch
• 100 grams arrowroot powder
• 100 grams cornstarch

That’s it. Weigh each one out and then put it in a giant container. (We like cambros, which you can find online and at restaurant supply stores.) Stir up all the flours together. Put on the lid and shake the heck of that thing until all the flours have mixed and combined into one flour. That’s it.

You now have flour for baking.

*While digital kitchen scales that offer grams and ounces are fairly inexpensive (and a must-have for all bakers), you can use this conversion calculator in a pinch, although results may vary.