King Arthur's 2-Ingredient Biscuits Make the Best Strawberry Shortcakes

Talk about quick and easy.

Meals growing up in the South were always accompanied by cornbread or biscuits (both if you were lucky). Cornbread was easier to make so we ate it more often at home, but biscuits were delicious for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We frequently ate them out or made them at home, even when everyone was too busy and the biscuits came from a can or the freezer.

This upbringing means I have obnoxious opinions about biscuits. It comes from a place of love—I love a good biscuit, and I really, really don’t like a bad one. So when I saw King Arthur Flour’s Easy Drop Biscuits, which call for just two (yes, two!) ingredients, I was struck by two conflicting thoughts. One, is this even a biscuit? And two, I have to try it.

Is It a Biscuit?

I believe you can’t make a biscuit without at least one of these two ingredients: butter and buttermilk. I have never made an American-style biscuit that didn’t call for one or both. This recipe calls for just self-rising flour (a common Southern biscuit ingredient) and heavy cream.

I immediately thought “This is a cream scone.” Cream scones are a British staple that frequently appear alongside tea. Even King Arthur Flour’s own cream scone recipe calls for essentially those two ingredients (flour plus leavening and cream), they’re just shaped differently.

We could argue semantics all day, but I realized upon making these super-easy biscuits that they are ideal for making my favorite summer dessert: strawberry shortcake. And that’s all that really matters.

Using These Biscuits to Make Strawberry Shortcake

The two-ingredient biscuits are ready in record time, and leave you just enough time to prep some strawberries and whip some cream while they bake. You can have a truly delicious, fully homemade dessert on the table in 20 minutes flat.

They’re also a nice size—small and cute—so you can serve small desserts with one biscuit or more generous servings using two. The cream makes the biscuits rich but not too buttery, and pairs nicely with the whipped cream and berries. I add a little sugar to the dough and sprinkle it on top so they’re lightly sweet, making these technically three-ingredient biscuits.

The Best Flour for Biscuits

If you have access to White Lily Self-Rising Flour, use it. It makes the best biscuits, hands down.

How to Make My 20-Minute Strawberry Shortcake

To make four to five servings (eight to 10 small biscuits), you’ll need:

For the biscuits:

• 1 1/2 cups (170g) self-rising flour

• 3/4 cup (170g) heavy cream, plus more for brushing the tops and as needed

• 3 tablespoons sugar, divided, optional

For the strawberries and whipped cream:

• 1 pound strawberries, hulled and sliced

• 3 teaspoons sugar, divided

• 3/4 cup cold heavy cream

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Position a rack in the top third of the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Add the flour and cream to a medium bowl. If you have a scale, this will make the recipe even faster since you’re using equal weights of each. If you’re making shortcakes, add 2 tablespoons of the sugar, too. Mix using a silicone spatula or wooden spoon until no streaks of flour remain. If the mixture is feeling dry as you mix, drizzle in more cream a teaspoon or two at a time. The dough should be stiff but not dry. Don’t overmix.

Use a 1 1/2 tablespoon cookie scoop or heaping tablespoon to scoop out 8 to 10 biscuits and place them spaced apart on the baking sheet. Brush lightly with cream and sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Bake until browned on the bottom and starting to brown on top, 9 to 12 minutes.

Right after you stick the biscuits in the oven, toss the strawberries with about 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar and let sit at room temperature. Add the cream and vanilla to a medium bowl and beat with a whisk or hand mixer at medium speed until it has thickened. Add the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar a little at a time while mixing, and beat until your whipped cream is fluffy and thick.

Serve the warm biscuits topped with juicy strawberries and whipped cream. I serve two biscuits per person since they are small.

Read the original article on Simply Recipes.