Molly Makes Strawberry Shortcake

[Man] Stand by.

Ugh.

[gentle guitar music]

This is a new recipe that I just developed

for Basically, our sister site.

And it has 10 ingredients,

as do all of our Basically recipes,

and is honestly obnoxiously simple,

given how delicious it is.

Step one is mix your dry ingredients.

So I have two cups of all-purpose flour,

some amount of baking powder and baking soda

[Man] which I cannot remember. Do you want to know?

Nah. Okay.

1 1/2 teaspoons of Kosher salt,

and then four teaspoons of granulated sugar.

And I'm whisking that in a large bowl

just to combine it all super quick.

And then, I'm gonna grate in the zest of about

half of a lemon.

You don't have to be super precise.

You don't need to measure out the lemon zest.

One stick of cold butter.

It's not frozen, but it's straight out of the refrigerator.

And I'm cutting it into a bunch of smaller pieces.

Some little cubies.

And then, those are getting tossed in

with the dry ingredients.

I'm basically combining the flour with the butter,

and pinching it in between my fingers

to break it down into smaller pieces

and even into shard.

For all of you gourmet-makes-lovers out there,

[Man] Yeah.

[men laughing]

I know I'm not Claire.

This is too big.

This is pretty perf.

You should work pretty quickly here,

and I should stop talking, just kinda get to the cutting

because the butter's gonna warm up with your hands,

and so, you don't want it to melt too much.

[hands clapping]

So, I have 3/4 a cup of sour cream

and 1/3 of a cup of heavy cream here,

and I'm gonna combine them in a small bowl,

and this is just gonna help to loosen up

the consistency of the sour cream

so that it's easier to incorporate into the dough.

I'm gonna make a hole right in the middle

of these dry ingredients and just

scoop in the wet.

And then, just working in circles, and again working quickly

until it comes together

in a very shaggy mass.

It's not really gonna be a dough yet.

Can I have a little bit of AP flour for this surf?

Thanks.

I'm flouring the surface of

my work surface.

Before it gets on there, I'm gonna use my hands

just to kind of gently knead this

into a more homogenous dough.

Okay, this is dough-ish.

Dough-like.

So now, getting it onto the counter,

and just kind of patting this into

an approximate, and don't get too crazy here,

one inch thick square.

Now, we're gonna cut this

into four equal parts.

And I'm going to stack them one by one on top of each other

[man screams] and press down.

And this is going to create all of those flaky layers

that you want to see in a biscuit.

So now that they've been stacked

and pressed back together,

I'm looking again for about a one inch thick rectangle.

I think it says seven inches by five?

[vocalizes] That's five.

That's seven.

Squaring them off.

And now, I'll cut this in half lengthwise.

And then, crosswise into

six squares.

Transferring those to parchment paper

on a rimmed baking sheet.

[hands clapping]

And I have a little bit more granulated sugar

that I'm just gonna sprinkle on the tops

for a little bit of a crunchy, sugary topping.

And now, we freeze these for 10 minutes,

just to get them nice and cold before they go in the oven.

Comin' in.

[Cameraman] Comin' in cold.

Comin' in extremely cold.

Yeah, this works.

Put 'em back there.

We're gonna macerate these very beautiful strawberries.

So, macerating is basically just a technique

where you add salt and sugar to fruit,

and let it sort of sit and marinate.

And the sugar and the salt draw out some of the juices

that are naturally in the fruit,

and create sort of a no-cook syrup from the fruit.

I think it may have been 10 minutes by now, so,

I'm thinking we should get those shorty C's in the oven.

[Man] In the oven?

Yeah, let's do it! Take a break from

some pies everywhere. [woman laughs]

Okay.

These are cold, chilled, which is good

because it's gonna help create that beautiful

pocket of steam inside them.

So now, we're gonna go into this

preheated 350-degree oven

for 20 to 25 minutes, keeping an eye on things

until they're puffed and super golden brown.

[Man] It says 400 in the recipe.

It's 400 degree oven.

Not 350.

Okay.

I have three tablespoons of granulated sugar.

A pinch of salt, because even in deserts,

you gotta add salt.

And then, I'm gonna add some lemon juice.

It calls for two tablespoons, I'll be right back.

Just looking for my OXO.

Where's the citrus?

Citrus in here now?

[Chris] No, it's down to the left near the silverware.

There she is.

I don't trust you for not liking this.

I caught one in the eye.

Yes. With this guy.

Because you used that guy. And I'm sticking with it,

because that's how much I like it.

It literally burned your eyeballs.

And you're still sticking with it.

Yeah, you're like a blurry haze right now,

but I can tell it's Molly right?

And Andy's somewhere over there.

Uh oh! Andy, anyway.

So point being-- He prefers

this kind of citrus juicer. 15% more juice.

Do you wanna bet? It yields

You wanna bet? 15% more juice.

Do you want to bet? Yeah, I wanna bet.

[Man] Oh, let's do it.

We're gonna need the big turkey scale though

[cameraman laughs] to weight how much

I'm gonna get out of this thing.

Enough talking, one, two, three.

[upbeat marching music]

How you doing over there? I'm good.

I'm just taking it nice and slow.

I don't need any more lemon juice in my eyes.

[upbeat marching music]

I can't wait to prove you wrong,

and then we can just get rid of

all of these once and forever.

Molly, shit's gonna get straight awkward after this, okay?

It is gonna get

kinda awkward. So, yeah.

Andy, do you have a prediction?

Which one do you use? I mean, it's tricky.

This is the one that I use, I will admit,

and this is the one that I'll probably stick with

no matter what, but I'm also just

looking at more liquid, Hands are clean.

but also which one has more flesh

'cause I think there's one that's gonna have

a lot more of the lemon flesh

and I do not want that. Ooh, does that count,

should we-- Okay.

We're back. Why don't you go ahead?

Oh God.

I'm nervous now. Fill that puppy up.

[Chris] Am I shaking?

No, I'm not shaking, but, I am nervous.

[Molly] I'm so nervous.

I've never been more nervous.

Let me help you out here.

Thanks, Molls.

[Molly] 49.2 grams and just under four tablespoons.

[Molly shrieking and chuckles]

[Chris] This is so intense.

[All] Oh!

[Molly] We're still going, Morocco.

Still going, still going, still going, 55.2.

Damn. .3

55.3 I'll never change.

So, how do you feel, Moroccs?

You just got served.

Yeah, this is tough. Yeah, it's tough.

[Chris] I'm letting it sink in.

Yeah, you know, I won't usually

just macerate with it. Deal with this feeling.

You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just macerate with it? Just macerate with it?

[everybody laughs] Yeah!

Just like my berries.

I'm still gonna go with this,

because to Andy's point,

I don't wanna be the machine.

You know. Wow!

I feel like that's just--

I want the machine to be the machine.

Really stubborn of you.

Yeah, that's all right.

It's really not all right, but okay.

Well, that was great

and you can take your That was a wild interlude.

small amount of lemon juice I'll take my

49.2 [laughs] back to your station.

All right, cool.

And I'm gonna keep macerating.

This was great.

I'm not quite sure what we learned, but [speaking faintly].

I mean, what a victorious day in the test kitchen.

So, couple tablespoons of lemon juice,

which is going to balance out all of the natural sugar,

and the added sugar from these macerating strawberries.

Bring a little brightness to the whole thing.

And I'm just gently turning them.

And right now, you can see,

little hard to tell, but there's only

a little bit of syrup that has accumulated,

and there's still some granulated sugar

around the inside of the bowl,

and as it sits, that will dissolve,

and it will become just a clear strawberry syrup.

Andy, do you wanna have a competition to see

who can whip cream faster?

[Man] Only one competition per video.

[Man] I'll give you my wisk, you'll be fine.

You got this. I heard that.

I know, I said it out loud. This is so fun.

It's the best day of my life.

[Cameraman] Andy, how are you feelings about your chances?

Cool as a cucumber I mean this is.

Like, if it was a slicing or dicing

using my knife,

You'd be scared for me?

I'd be scared for her.

I'd be scared for just about everyone.

Well, that's not Accept for Chris,

[speaking faintly]. what we're doing here.

Noodle arms, noodle arms.

[Man] That's the timer for

[voice drowned out]. [Molly laughs]

[man laughs] Oh!

Okay, you know what, those shortcakes can wait.

We go until you can tip that bowl upside down

and nothing comes out.

That is the test. Okay. [laughs]

That is the test.

Can you live with that? Yes.

Okay, and nothing falls out.

Nothing falls out.

Three, two, one, go!

[upbeat marching music] [whips screeching]

Oh my God, this bowl sucks.

[upbeat marching music] [whips screeching]

I'm really liking what's happening

to Molly's thickening.

I'm [beeps] whooping your ass right now, Andy.

[upbeat marching music] [whips screeching]

[Chris] Molly's thickening.

Molly's thickening. Yes!

[upbeat marching music] [whips screeching]

No! Wow!

Oh! I was up first.

Man, I feel like Molly had it

by half a second. We have it on camera,

we have it on camera.

And also, who has thicker cream?

Doesn't matter Yes, it does.

'Cause I got there first. It was up, it was up.

Oh man, that was close, we're gonna have

to check the replay on that.

[whips rumbling]

Thankfully we have it I think you were up first.

on camera.

I'm just saying, my cream is whipped thicker than yours.

Over-whipped.

That's not what the test was.

[beeps] [both laughing]

Andy, it's literally all over the kitchen,

and all over you.

And you under-whipped your cream.

No, this is not under-whipped, this is perfectly whipped.

Okay, but.

This is perfectly whipped.

I just whipped your ass. Yours rippled

a little bit too much. [man laughs]

[Molly grunts] feels good to be in first,

it really does, guys.

Okay, I have a video to make.

[Andy vocalizes] [Molly laughs]

Okay.

[hands clapping]

It's a little slippery over here. [laughs]

Okay.

The shortcakes during that amount of time cooked.

And someone took them out of the oven for me, thankfully.

Okay.

These are perfectly cooked.

They are golden brown on top.

There are visible layers, lots of flaky.

That is a result of that stacking

and pressing technique that we did.

So now, all that's left to do is build the bowl.

So, I'm gonna go get one.

A fresh bowl of whipped cream,

since we over-whipped the last few.

This is now almost soft peaks.

And I'm going to just add

the remaining quarter cup of sour cream is going in.

And that's gonna just

bring a little bit of tang

to this cream, which otherwise would just be heavy cream.

This guy's pretty perfect.

So, the nice thing about these is

because of all those layers, they really naturally split,

so they just open right up.

Some berries to get

some of that yummy juice soaking into the biscuit.

A couple of dollops

of whipped cream.

Some more berries.

And then,

tipping the bowl and just pulling some of those juices.

[Cameraman] That is the sound of Andy punching the bag

Yeah, Andy In frustration.

is pissed. In sadness.

And I feel great.

Okay, so you can just spoon some juices over,

and then

top it right off.

La strawberry shortcake.

It's a pretty one.

It's a shortcake but a tall boy.

Because I feel bad that I beat you,

you may have a shortcake.

People think I'm so competitive.

Andy!

[Cameraman] No outro?

[Molly] No, I don't have an outro,

I just have victory that I'm gonna walk away with.

[Cameraman] Do you wanna shoot that?

Walk away with my victory. No actually--

I going next from yesterday.

This is the best.