Wholesome Strawberry Shortcake

My take on an early-summer classic, brimming with sweet, red berries and creamy coconut whipped cream.

Greetings, everyone! Today’s newsletter is short and (literally) sweet because my family and I are heading out for an adventure in the city. One of my absolute favorite things about where I live is that my town is semi-rural yet, on days where we feel like a bit more excitement and variety, we can hop in the car (or take a train) and be in the greatest city on earth (ahem, NYC!) in just less than an hour. For the uninitiated, I am obsessed with my home city. I was born in NYC, lived and worked there for many years, went to culinary school there and daydream about maybe one day owning a place there when my kids are grown. Anyway, I DIGRESS. So, yes, an exciting city day today but I am also very much a country mouse at heart.

Remember those farms I just mentioned? Earlier this month, all of them were overflowing with ruby red, absolutely perfect locally grown strawberries. As a big berry consuming family, we look forward to this all year. We’ll typically buy two or three big containers at a time: one for eating (in its entirety) on the 3 minute drive home, and the others for breakfasts, snacking and baking. Even though I wouldn’t classify myself as a baker, I do like throwing together rustic, unfussy desserts when the mood calls for it. My kids were asking for strawberry shortcake, so I decided to make my more wholesome take on this early summer classic with one of our recent berry hauls. You won’t find any refined white flour or sugar here, but without compromise on the sweet nostalgia of the “traditional” recipe.

Now that the heat wave in the Northeast has subsided, you can safely turn your oven on again to bake this for Friday night movie night, or for a slow weekend brunch. If you want to simplify things, you can always leave out the coconut whipped cream and just put a dollop of your favorite vanilla ice cream on top instead (I’ve been enjoying the Whole Foods brand Vanilla Bean non-dairy ice cream as of late).

A quick note: if you don’t have access to farmstand strawberries, do not fret! “Regular” supermarket strawberries will be great here, too.