MAISON DE KENNEDY

Shawn's Strawberry Shortcakes

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍 (0/5) Tested by Cass — 40 min + overnight · Makes 12

Not made these yet — no rating.

A whipped-egg sponge in muffin form: 12 individual portable shortcakes instead of one cake nobody can slice at a desk. The sponge rises on air alone — no creaming, no chemical lift beyond a little baking powder. Baked in cupcake papers so they carry cleanly in a muffin carrier without shedding. Split, filled with cream and macerated berries, dusted. Morning tea for a whole team.

Ingredients

Sponges — bake the night before

• 4 large Eggs — room temperature
• Pinch Salt
• 1 cup Caster Sugar — 220 g
• 1⅓ cups Plain Flour — 170 g
• 1⅓ tsp Baking Powder
• 65 g Butter — melted
• ½ tsp Vanilla — optional

To Finish — assemble in the morning

• 1 punnet Strawberries — ~300 g, hulled and sliced
• 2 tbsp Caster Sugar — for macerating
• 1 cup Cream — cold
• 1 tbsp Icing Sugar — for the cream
• ½ tsp Vanilla — for the cream
• 1 tbsp Icing Sugar — for dusting

Method

1. Prep: Oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper cases. Do not grease inside the papers — the sponge climbs the paper walls to rise.
2. Beat the eggs and salt for about 1 minute until very foamy.
3. Sugar in gradually: Add the caster sugar in a slow stream while beating on high, then keep beating about 5 minutes until pale, thick and fluffy — visibly tripled in volume and ribboning off the whisk. Vanilla at the end if using. This is the whole cake; do not shortcut it.
4. Sift and fold: Sift the flour and baking powder together, then sift again over the egg mixture. Fold gently with a metal spoon or spatula — figure-eight, scooping from the bottom. Stop the moment the flour streaks disappear. Over-folding kills the air.
5. Butter in: Drizzle the melted butter around the edge of the bowl and fold in with about 6 gentle strokes, just until combined.
6. Portion two-thirds full — an ice cream scoop gives even portions. Don't overfill; they need room to climb.
7. Bake 12–14 minutes until pale gold, springy to the touch, and just pulling away from the papers. Do not open the oven before 10 minutes or they'll deflate.
8. Cool completely: 10 minutes in the tin, then onto a wire rack still in their papers. At least 2 hours, fully room temperature and dry, before they go into a container. Do not slice them tonight.
9. Macerate the berries first in the morning: sliced strawberries tossed with 2 tbsp caster sugar, left 15–20 minutes to release juice. Visibly juicy but still firm slices, not mushy.
10. Whip the cream cold, with icing sugar and vanilla, to soft-medium peaks. It should hold a dollop but still look glossy. Over-whipped cream splits and weeps — stop early.
11. Split each sponge: Peel off the paper case and slice horizontally through the middle with a serrated knife. Bottom half stays on the case for stability.
12. Fill: Dollop of cream on the bottom half, then 3–4 strawberry slices and a small spoon of the juice. Top half back on, pressed gently so the filling shows at the edges.
13. Dust and pack: Icing sugar over the tops, dusted just before packing so it doesn't dissolve into the cream. Nestle into the muffin carrier.

Notes

• The ribbon test is the whole recipe. Lift the whisk and drizzle a figure-eight across the surface — the trail should sit on top for a count of three before disappearing. If it sinks straight in, keep beating. This step cannot be rushed.
• Timing for a morning delivery: bake and cool completely the night before, leaving them unsliced in an airtight container at room temperature. In the morning, macerate the berries first (they need 15–20 minutes), then whip, then slice and fill. Dust last.
• Transport: assembled in the muffin carrier, ideally with an ice pack in an insulated bag if the drive is long. Fine at office temperature for morning tea.
• Attribution note: this follows the classic NZ whipped-egg sponge method — plain flour plus baking powder, no cornflour — but it hasn't been checked line by line against the Edmonds original, so it's a sponge in that tradition rather than a transcription of it.

The tells that ruin them

• Eggs under-whipped — dense, eggy sponges that won't rise.
• Over-folding the flour — deflates and turns rubbery.
• Cups filled too full — they mushroom, tear the papers, bake unevenly.
• Opening the oven early — collapse.
• Slicing warm, or the night before — they dry out and go soggy where filled.
• Over-whipped cream — weeps in the fridge and they go soupy in transit.
• Un-drained berries — juice pools at the bottom and the papers go soggy.

Variations

• Lemon zest in the cream — zest of half a lemon whipped in. Brightens the berries without changing the profile.
• Passionfruit dot — ¼ tsp of pulp on each dusted shortcake. Very Kiwi finish.
• Berry mix — half strawberries, half raspberries, or a few blueberries. Drop the maceration sugar if the raspberries are already sweet.
• Split the batch — sponges are best filled the same day. Hold half unfilled in an airtight container and assemble fresh the next morning.
• Firmer cream for long transport — stabilise with 1 tsp cornflour whipped in. Holds shape longer at room temperature.

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