My friend Hito has been crashing at our house for a bit after graduation while he is applying for jobs and figuring out in which city he is going to live. After finding out that he loves strawberries and has a major sweet tooth, I decided to finally try making hand pies from Melissa Gray’s All Cakes Considered. Disaster! The hand pies turned into a greasy mess. While they looked beautiful after frying, the grease-bombs were undercooked-dough a few millimeters in. I will have to try to figure out what went wrong as every recipe I’ve used from this book previously has turned out wonderfully.
To redeem myself from embarrassment, and use up the remaining pound of strawberries in my fridge, I made strawberry shortcakes. I made a half batch from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours.
This has to be my new favorite shortcake recipe. The cakes come out slightly craggily, almost cloud-like in appearance and have a a marvelous crust that gives to flaky, perfectly moist biscuit texture. They were a hit with Hito, and even Huey, who is mostly indifferent to dessert, enjoyed them. I will definitely make these again before the summer ends.
