Easy Lemon Strawberry Shortcake {For Two}

To Make the Shortcakes:

1. Preheat the oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment.
2. In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry knife or rubbing the butter into the flour using your hands. I cut the flour in with a pastry knife and then rubbed it in until the mixture held its shape when I squeezed it (it easy crumbled back apart).
3. Mix in the lemon zest until evenly distributed.
4. Slowly add the milk to the mixture and toss with a fork. Continue to add milk until the mixture just comes together in a cohesive ball. I accidentally added too much milk and it turned out just fine.
5. Flour a surface. If you are going to make individual shortcakes pat your dough into one large circle until it is ½ to ¾ inch thick. Using a 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut out 4 shortcakes and place gently on parchment lined baking sheet about 2-inches apart. I baked up my scraps on the same cookie sheet – waste not, want not is my motto. If you are going to make a single shortcake, divide your dough into equal halves, pat each into a circle of approximately the same size and thickness, and place on your cookie sheet. {You could also use a rolling pin, but why bother?}
6. Bake shortcakes for approximately 15 minutes or until the bottoms are golden and the tops are just beginning to brown.
7. While your shortcakes cook, make your strawberry topping and whipped cream.

To make the Strawberry Lemon Filling:

1. Wash, dry, and hull the berries. I use the pointy end of a vegetable peeler to do this as efficiently as possible with minimal waste. Quarter the berries and smash half of them in a bowl using a fork or whatever device you find easiest. They don’t have to be perfectly mashed, we just want to get the process going!
2. Add the remaining berries to the bowl, sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice and stir. Let sit on the counter while you make the whipped cream and the shortcakes finish baking.

Assembling the Shortcakes:

1. Strain the excess juice from the berries and reserve the juice. [If you are serving them right away and you don’t care about the presentation, then you can absolutely skip this step. ]
2. As you can see in my pictures I like to place one shortcake on the bottom, top it with strawberries and whipped cream and then repeat the process with another shortcake. Drizzle with the reserved strawberry lemon juice.