The Best Shortcake Biscuits

What is a Shortcake?

Even though the name “shortcake” implies that this dessert would be cake-based, it’s the “short” in the name they tells you that the classic recipe is a biscuit-based dessert.

The “short” refers to a specific type of dough where the fat is cut into the flour. The lumps of fat interfere with gluten development. This mixing method creates a pastry that is that is more crumbly than stretchy.

Shortbread cookies, Pie Dough and Shortcrust pastry are other “short” doughs. So, in “short” (pun intended), a shortcake is more biscuit than cake.

Ingredients

• Mix together the dry ingredients, then work in the cold butter.

• See the lumps of cold butter? That will make the dough crumbly and “short”.
• Add the buttermilk, mix, then briefly knead the dough just until it comes together.

• No need to use a rolling pin, use your hands to pat the dough to 3/4″ thick to keep it tender.
• Use a biscuit cutter to cut rounds of dough or see the photo below to make square shortcakes.

• Brush the shortcakes with buttermilk and sprinkle with granulated sugar before baking.
• They will spread a little in the oven.

• Bake until lightly browned and set in the center.
• The biscuits are very light. The open crumb will absorb the fruit juices.

How shortcake biscuits are different than regular biscuits

For a shortcake dessert I want a biscuit that is a little sweeter and a little lighter than a typical Buttermilk Biscuit. I adapted my flaky biscuit recipe into a shortcake biscuit recipe by making the following changes.

• Shortcakes biscuits have a little more sugar than regular biscuits.
• Shortcake biscuits have a little more baking powder for a lighter crumb (to absorb the fruit juices!).
• Shortcake biscuits have eggs in the dough and regular biscuits don’t contain eggs. The eggs give the biscuits a more cakey texture.
• The dough for shortcake biscuits is not folded to create layers.

Pastry Chef tips for making great Shortcake Biscuits

I will show you one of my shortcake mistakes so you can avoid the same problem.

Trying to work ahead I tossed the dry ingredients together, cut up the butter, sprinkled it over the mix, covered the bowl, and left it at room temperature overnight.

I mixed the dough first thing in the morning. Because the butter was softened, it broke down instead of staying in little lumps. The butter completely mixed into, and coated, the flour.

Sooo, the coated flour couldn’t absorb the buttermilk & eggs. I could tell right away that the dough was too wet (see the left-hand photo below).

I proceeded to gently pat the dough by hand as I always do. I cut the first round of biscuits and could tell they were much too soft. You can see in the photo below (middle tray) how much those biscuits spread in the oven.

To compensate, I gathered up the scraps and kneaded in some flour. Of course I added too much flour and kneaded too much, so the second round of biscuits were too tight. You can see in the photo (left-side tray) that the biscuits rose up too much. The crumb was too tight.

Before posting this recipe I knew I had to make the biscuits properly so you could see what they should look like. A few days later I mixed the dough according to the directions (cold butter, minimal kneading). You can see the biscuits on the right-side tray are just right.