Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake

I have a new love.  Well, obviously still second to gin martinis, but now I can add Chocolate Strawberry Shortcakes to the list.

I know that there are possibly one zillion different ways to make strawberry shortcake.  I've seen it done with regulars biscuits and these little round cakes you can buy in a package in the grocery store that kind of resembles a Twinkie without the filling.  I've seen it done using angle food cake and also with pound cake.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not going to turn down any of the above versions.  But I've never seen chocolate biscuits and I'm certain I've been converted to the dark side (chocolate...dark...get it?  Sorry.  It's been a really long morning.).

• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chilled whipping cream
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR BISCUITS**: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment. Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat cream and vanilla in medium bowl until firm peaks form. Stir cream into flour mixture until moist clumps form. Transfer mixture to lightly floured surface and knead gently until dough forms a ball, about 10 turns. Pat dough out to ¾ inch thickness. Using a 3-inch cutter, cut out biscuits. Gather dough, pat out again and cut a total of 6 biscuits. Place biscuits on prepared baking sheet. Bake biscuits until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack; cool.

**Note:  This biscuit dough is very, very crumbly!  As in, I thought I'd done something wrong it was so crumbly.  But I went back over the recipe and I put everything in that needed to go in.  It doesn't hold together like regular biscuit dough.  You need to pat it together and gently move your biscuits onto your baking sheet; I actually cut them out with my biscuit cutter and they stayed in the little round, so I popped them out directly onto my baking sheet from the biscuit cutter.  But once they bake, they hold together great and they taste amazing!

• 2 lbs small strawberries, hulled and quartered (about 3 ½ cups)
• 6 tablespoons powdered sugar
• ¼ cup fresh orange juice
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur
• ½ teaspoon finely grated orange peel
• pinch of salt

FOR STRAWBERRIES**: Stir strawberries, 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar and next 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Cover and chill at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours.
**Note: I did not use the orange liqueur.  I couldn't justify buying some for one recipe, so I just used 2 extra tablespoons of orange juice.

• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• ½ cup chilled whipping cream
• ½ cup chilled sour cream

FOR WHIPPED CREAM: Using electric mixer, beat chilled whipping cream, sour cream and remaining 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar until soft peaks form.

Place 1 biscuit on each of 6 plates. Place large spoonful of berries with juices on biscuits. Top with whipped cream. Pass remaining berries alongside.

 

This recipe was taken from Bon Appetite, June 2007.