Strawberry & Vanilla Shortcakes

Encapsulate British summertime with these cute little shortcakes, perfect piled high with clotted cream and jam

• Cooking Time Prep 15 mins
  Cook 12 mins
• Skill Level Easy
• Servings Make 8

Nutrition per serving

• Kcalories

  502

• Protein

  6g

• Carbs

  55g

• Fat

  30g

• Saturates

  18g

• Fibre

  2g

• Sugar

  22g

• Salt

  0.82g

Ingredients

• 350g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
• 100g butter, cold, cubed
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped
• 100ml milk, warmed
• 1 egg, plus a little extra beaten egg for glazing
• squeeze lemon juice
• For the topping
• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• 227g tub clotted cream
• 250g strawberries, tickly sliced
• strawberry jam (see 'goes well with' for recipe, or buy ready-made)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7 and lightly flour a baking sheet. Put the flour, butter, sugar, half of the vanilla seeds and ¼ tsp salt into the bowl of a food processor, then pulse until fine. Tip into a large bowl. Beat the milk, egg and a good squeeze of lemon together, then tip into the bowl and bring together with a knife, using a cutting action, until you have a clumpy dough. Finally bring together with your hands if you need to.
2. Lightly flour the work surface, tip the dough onto it, then quickly shape into a smooth-ish disc. Using a rolling pin, pat out to 2cm thick. Cut out 8 rounds with a smooth 7cm cutter (you'll need to pinch together the trimmings). Glaze just the tops with beaten egg, transfer to the floured sheet, then bake for 10-12 mins until risen and golden, and they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.
3. Beat the remaining vanilla seeds and icing sugar into the clotted cream. It will get runnier at first, but keep beating and it will thicken again. To serve, slice the very top from each shortcake to give a flat surface, then spoon over about 1 tsp jam. Top with a good dollop of the vanilla clotted cream and finish with the strawberries.

Categories: Cakes & Baking, Fruit