We challenged chefs of three different skill levels - amateur Billy, home cook Gina, and professional chef Umber Ahmed - to make us their take on a classic strawberry shortcake. Once each level of chef had presented their creations, we asked expert food scientist Rose to explain the choices each made along the way. Which strawberry shortcake will you be bringing to the picnic?
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm Billy and I'm a level one chef.
00:06I'm Gina.
00:07I'm a level two chef.
00:08My name is Umber.
00:09I'm with Mazathar Bakery.
00:11I've been a professional chef in pastry for 10 years.
00:15Strawberry shortcake is the perfect dessert for having friends over on a Sunday afternoon.
00:20It's like eating air.
00:22You could eat 10 slices and not feel like real gross afterwards.
00:26It reminds me of childhood.
00:27You can't eat strawberry shortcake without feeling happy.
00:36So with any strawberry shortcake recipe, you need the cake.
00:39I'm using store-bought, ready-made biscuits.
00:42This is all about speed and deliciousness and finding the balance between the two.
00:47And nothing wrong with a good can of biscuits, if you ask me.
00:49I get stressed out because opening them is like a time bomb.
00:53Depending on what kind of person you are, you either like this or it's traumatic.
00:56Hey, traumatic.
00:58There's two routes you can go.
00:59There's the layer cake version, and then there's the biscuit version.
01:02I'll be making the biscuit kind, because I like scones.
01:05We're going to do a lemon pound cake.
01:08Mix lemon zest into the sugar, then put it into the mixing bowl.
01:12And then the next thing is to put in the butter.
01:14I'm going to start with the dry ingredients.
01:16Flour, kosher salt, and then I have baking powder.
01:18I'm going to whisk it together.
01:20If you overmix your flour, you activate the gluten in the flour, and that's when you get
01:24the chew.
01:25So make sure you don't overmix.
01:27Then this is cold butter.
01:29You want layers of flakiness.
01:32Cold butter helps that.
01:33This actually feels quite nice.
01:34So now I'm going to focus on the wet ingredients.
01:36Three quarter cups of buttermilk.
01:38I'm going to crack this egg right inside the buttermilk.
01:42I always break my eggs and put them into a separate bowl.
01:45Don't ever break an egg directly into a mixing bowl.
01:48It guarantees that you're going to find a piece of shell in there.
01:52Whisk it together.
01:53I add eggs one at a time.
01:55It allows the mixture to sort of absorb each egg.
01:57I just want to make sure that I get a light and fluffy mixture.
02:01The next thing I'm going to do is add in my dry ingredients.
02:04I have my flour mixture and I have my buttermilk mixed with lemon juice.
02:07Mix it all together.
02:10I'm a big stickler about getting all of the batter off of the mixer.
02:15It doesn't leave much for anybody to lick, but we'll be okay.
02:18So we're going to do the fun part.
02:21We're going to dump it on the table and make a big mess.
02:24Welcome to the scone zone.
02:25Fold it together.
02:27Pat it out into a round shape.
02:29And then I'm going to take my bench scraper and press it straight down.
02:32If you think about a snowflake.
02:34Overestimated here.
02:36A couple of people are going to get really big pieces of cake.
02:38We've got eight biscuits here.
02:41Arrange them onto the baking sheet.
02:43This piece is for your favorite person because it's the biggest.
02:46I'm just going to pop these into the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
02:49All right.
02:50These have been chilling.
02:51And now I'm going to brush them with some buttermilk.
02:53Give a light brushing of melted butter to each.
02:56Now you can imagine that this is going to make them toast up and look nice and golden.
03:01I'm going to take a little bit of granulated sugar.
03:04So this is the coarse sugar.
03:06And that's going to go a long ways towards these toasting up and looking brown and delicious.
03:10I'm going to pop these into the oven until golden brown.
03:14Yeah, boy.
03:15Got some biscuits.
03:16Tell you, just a little bit of butter and sugar on top is a good way to elevate some store-bought biscuits.
03:21I'm going to let these cool.
03:23I have a cake ring.
03:25And I'm going to cut out the ring of cake that I'm going to be using for the dessert itself.
03:29She's still going to be in the kitchen making her cake.
03:31I'm going to be having Aperol Spritz in the garden.
03:34We all make our choices in this life.
03:35And once I've done that, I want to remove the edges.
03:40Do not throw these away.
03:41They are gold.
03:42The next step for me is to remove the very top layer of the cake.
03:46It's almost like a little barrier.
03:48I want to eliminate that barrier and let everything to get absorbed into the cake itself.
03:52The next thing I do is cut all the way through the cake.
03:55And now I have two separate pieces.
03:57So my cake is ready.
03:58The last step is to make simple syrup.
04:00To moisten each one of the cake layers, I take a small pot and put it on medium heat.
04:04Add equal parts sugar and water.
04:07I let it boil for just a little bit.
04:09Let this cool.
04:10Add in my lemon juice and I stir it around.
04:12The lemon simple syrup is going to be a great way for me to reinforce the flavor and the
04:16texture of the cake as I build it.
04:18And it's not strawberry shortcake without strawberries.
04:21I've got a bowl of beautiful red strawberries here just waiting to be sliced up.
04:26Nothing too fancy.
04:27We're going to kind of combine them with some granulated sugar in the bowl.
04:31Strawberries are the star of the cake.
04:33So I want to get some good ones and these are from the farmer's market.
04:36I'm using these strawberries that come from a special farm in California.
04:41They're just like full of flavor, full of sunshine and full of a lot of juice.
04:45The other strawberries that I'm going to use on the outside of the cake as more decorative
04:49but still just as incredible in flavor are a varietal of strawberry from Japan that hasn't
04:55normally been available in the United States.
04:57All about the same size.
04:59They're going to be displayed.
05:01So if I have a lot of different strawberries that are different sizes, it looks a little
05:03bit less uniform.
05:04Nothing complicated.
05:05I take the top off like that.
05:07I go as close to the inside of the stem and I just make a small little circular motion
05:12and it's preserved as much of the strawberry as I possibly can.
05:16One slice, two slices and then we get four total out of there.
05:21It's starting to look like a murder scene but that's okay.
05:23It's a very tasty murder scene.
05:25I'm just making little cubes of the strawberries.
05:28Strawb is prepared.
05:31Gonna transfer all the berries into the bowl.
05:33Sweeten them up a little bit more.
05:35Not that strawberries aren't already sweet but a little bit of granulated sugar.
05:40That little bit of molasses gives you almost an earthy flavor.
05:44Slightly caramel, slightly maple.
05:45It adds complexity.
05:46It doesn't need to be super sweet.
05:48You're basically using the brown sugar to draw the natural juices and sweetness of the
05:53strawberries out.
05:54Lemon is gonna add some brightness and some tang.
05:58Cornstarch is going to thicken the mixture.
06:01I'm gonna toss the strawberries a little bit with a spoon.
06:04Strawberries have been chopped and dressed with the cornstarch and lemon mixture and
06:09now it's gonna be ready for the stovetop.
06:11I'm gonna move into the pretty strawberries.
06:12Not that beauty is everything but you know, it kind of is here.
06:16I'm gonna cut them in half and I'm gonna keep them all sort of put together so they don't
06:21dry out.
06:22I'm going to put these into the saucepan just with some honey.
06:26Oh, it's so cool.
06:28The color got even brighter.
06:30That looks really pretty.
06:31Also looks like guts.
06:32You know, I don't know.
06:33I think we're about done.
06:35I'm gonna let this chill and we're gonna use that to put in our cake.
06:38Now, whipped topping.
06:40Didn't get too ambitious.
06:42Kept it straightforward.
06:43If you'll bear with me, we're going to try to do it right now.
06:46A one and a two and a three.
06:49There we go.
06:50And my whipped topping is ready.
06:52I love ready whip.
06:53I shouldn't tell you why but it was the cheapest tie you could get when you were 12 years old.
06:57I'll tell you that much.
06:58We're gonna make some whipped cream.
06:59It comes together real quick.
07:01So now I'm into the fun stuff.
07:02Diplomat cream, which is whipped cream mixed together with pastry cream to get a luscious,
07:06luscious filling.
07:07I'm gonna start with the pastry cream.
07:09The first thing I do is put a pot on medium heat.
07:12I add the cream in, lock it in, some powdered sugar, and then I add in the milk.
07:18While the milk and cream are heating up, I'm gonna mix together my egg yolks, sugar, tiny
07:23bit of salt.
07:24Whenever you make pastry or anything sweet, add a little bit of salt.
07:27It will find that balance much better.
07:29Then I add in cornstarch because you want the pastry cream to be a little bit thick.
07:33I whisk all of these ingredients together until I have kind of a yellow paste.
07:38This is a process called tempering.
07:39By slowly adding hot liquid to my eggs, I'm avoiding making scrambled eggs, and I'm getting
07:45everything to the same temperature.
07:46Now I'm gonna add all of the egg mixture back into the rest of the milk.
07:52And now I'm gonna heat this liquid.
07:54I whisk a bit, I stop, I check, I go back into whisking.
07:57You want this to feel like pudding.
07:59As soon as this is ready to come off the heat, I put it into another container.
08:02I'm gonna add in some vanilla.
08:05I love to use vanilla bean paste.
08:08You get the actual little pieces of vanilla, so you get the caviar, all of the bean on
08:12the inside.
08:13We're gonna add like a little dollop of sour cream.
08:16I take half my butter, room temperature.
08:18If you don't put butter in, it's probably not considered pastry cream.
08:21Once I've gotten that melted in, I'll add the balance of the butter.
08:26So I have my pastry cream, and it looks so divine.
08:30I'm gonna put this on an ice bath for about 25 minutes or so.
08:33Put this in the refrigerator.
08:34I leave it overnight so it's completely cooled.
08:36Gives us the ideal temperature to mix it with the creme chantilly, which is French for chantilly
08:41cream.
08:42The first step is to put water into a small bowl, and then I sprinkle a little gelatin
08:47on top.
08:48I mix this up, and then I'm gonna microwave it to dissolve the gelatin in the water.
08:52I can see now it's clear.
08:54Put heavy cream into my mixing bowl.
08:57I'm gonna mix it up just a little bit.
08:59Now I'm gonna put the gelatin in.
09:00I am looking for smooth and eventually stiff peaks.
09:03Stiff peak.
09:04And what that means is, when I lift the bowl up, there should be some of the cream left
09:08here, and it should look like a more defined peak than it does now.
09:12See how fast it is?
09:14Like, yeah, so fast.
09:16Now I have stabilized whipped cream.
09:18And the next and final step to the filling is to mix this with the pastry cream.
09:22Pour this into the bowl.
09:24All right, finished.
09:26And now I'm done.
09:27All I have now is diplomat cream.
09:29Have I heard of diplomat cream?
09:31No.
09:32I can neither confirm nor deny whether I have heard of diplomat cream.
09:36It's a diplomatic answer.
09:37I'm going to put it into pastry bags.
09:39Diplomat cream is lighter in color, has more structure, and is gonna work beautifully inside
09:44the cake.
09:45Sliced strawberries, baked biscuit, can of whipped topping.
09:48I'm ready to assemble my strawberry shortcakes.
09:51First thing I'm gonna do is take one of these biscuits, and they should open up comfortably
09:56without, yeah, without a knife.
09:58Thank you, modern commerce.
10:00Ta-da!
10:01Ooh.
10:02Texture looks very fluffy, which is exactly what we want.
10:06I have the same cake ring that I used to size out the cake pieces earlier.
10:10I'm going to add a piece of acetate because it gives it sort of an added level of security
10:14that the cake isn't gonna fall apart after I'm done constructing it.
10:18I'm gonna take the bottom layer of the two layers of cake and paint the top of the cake
10:23layer with this gorgeous lemon simple syrup.
10:26Let's start with the whipped topping.
10:28Healthy dollop.
10:29Take the fancy strawberries, and this is the design part.
10:32And now some strawbs on top.
10:34It's about, you know, two spoonfuls, maybe three, if you love the person more.
10:40I'm going to very lightly fill in the cake.
10:43Top that.
10:44A little bit more cream on top.
10:47I'm going to add the macerated strawberries to the inside of the cake.
10:50I'm gonna make a garnish.
10:52This is like where you could get fancy.
10:54Put the lemon simple syrup on the cake.
10:56There it is.
10:57What I have now is a star tip, which just makes a really beautiful little flower.
11:02The last and final step.
11:04I took freeze-dried strawberries, chopped them up using the back of a spoon, and now
11:08I have a really beautiful decoration.
11:10Isn't she so pretty?
11:12And this is my strawberry shortcake.
11:16And this is my strawberry shortcake.
11:19And this is my strawberry shortcake.
11:25You're not going to win a beauty pageant, you might win a tummy pageant.
11:32It looks yummy, and all the things are melting, oh my gosh.
11:36I would call it a fraisier américain, an American strawberry cake.
11:41This kind of dessert is the reason why we eat our regular food so quickly, so we get
11:45to dessert as fast as possible.
11:48It is time to taste.
11:49I bet you it's going to be a delight.
11:50I'm going to try to get a little bit of everything in one bite.
11:57That's delicious.
11:58Oh my gosh.
11:59You're in and out of the kitchen in the time it takes for the biscuits to bake, 10-15 minutes
12:02total, and you got something delicious to serve to your friends and family.
12:06There's that ultimate Asian dessert compliment where people say, it's not too sweet, so it's
12:11not too sweet.
12:12It's really yummy.
12:13I get the strawberries in every single bite, so I know that it's a strawberry shortcake,
12:17but everything else around it is just so perfect.
12:20You're going to have to turn that camera off, because I am going to eat this whole thing.
12:26Strawberry shortcake is such a sweet summer treat.
12:28Let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs.
12:34Billy made pop and serve biscuits.
12:37Pressure inside the tube is greater than outside, compressing tiny air pockets in the dough.
12:42When opened, the pressure is released extremely quickly, the dough expands, and as it pushes
12:46against air, sound waves are generated.
12:49It's always a little scary to open these things.
12:51Gina made biscuit-style shortcake.
12:53This is a method of combining a flour mixture with a solid, flavorful fat like butter.
12:58The butter is cut into the flour mixture, where it coats all of the gluten proteins.
13:04This shortens the gluten molecules, hence the name shortcake.
13:07It prevents interactions between proteins and water molecules, and inhibits gluten development,
13:13which keeps the biscuits tender.
13:15Umber made a lemon pound cake, originally named such because you would use a pound of
13:20each ingredient.
13:21Pound cakes have a very tight crumb, with tiny air pockets evenly distributed throughout
13:26the entire cake.
13:27The intense lemon flavor is from limonene, a compound found in high concentration in
13:32the peel.
13:36Billy simply sliced strawberries and added sugar.
13:40Sugar initiates osmotic changes, and draws water out of the strawberries to create a
13:44viscous sweet sauce.
13:47To accomplish this, you only need a small amount of sugar.
13:50Gina made a cooked strawberry sauce with honey to amplify sweetness.
13:54She also added cornstarch, which gelatinizes when it's combined with the macerated strawberries,
14:00thickening the strawberry juice.
14:05Billy used a can of Ready Whip.
14:07The can is pressurized, using nitrous oxide as a spray propellant.
14:12When you press on the nozzle, pressure is released, the nitrous oxide expands and quickly
14:17infuses into the cream as it's released, resulting in a sweet, fluffy whipped cream.
14:22Gina whipped heavy cream, which is upwards of 35% milk fat.
14:27It foams well due to the proteins that form around tiny pockets of air as it's whipped,
14:32preventing the air from combining with the water molecules present, which would deflate
14:36the whole mass.
14:37The cold fat stabilizes the proteins, which is why that high fat percentage is necessary
14:42for stable whipped cream.
14:44No, America, look.
14:46Look what science has done for you.
14:48Umber's Diplomat Cream is an intricate mix of pastry and Chantilly creams.
14:53Chantilly cream is sweetened whipped cream, which Umber stabilized by adding gelatin,
14:59or hydrolyzed collagen.
15:00It's the result of a reaction with water that breaks peptide bonds and increases the number
15:05of free amino acids.
15:06I mean, are you really going to go home and make your own creme diplomat?
15:09No.
15:10You're going to buy a can of whipped cream, just like I did, and there is no shame in
15:14that game.
15:15Next time you have strawberries and you're craving a sweet, summery treat, we hope you'll
15:19take some of these tips from our three creative chefs.