Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F. For the shortcake: Get out two 9 inch cake pans and spray them liberally with cooking spray. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cocoa powder. Add the cubed butter and cut it into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender, without over working it. It should look pebbly. Making shortcake is basically making a biscuit dough, it’s not like cake batter at all. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Pour it into the dry ingredients and gently mix it in. Bring the dough together with your hands and knead it for about a minute in the bowl.

2. Divide the dough in half and pat each half out to evenly fill each cake pan. Bake the chocolate strawberry shortcakes for 15 minutes. While they bake, hull and roughly chop the strawberries. Mix them in a large bowl with the granulated sugar. This is going to draw out their gorgeous juices and give the perfect added sweetness.

3. Then prepare the luscious whipped cream. Pour the whipping cream into a bowl and whip it with a hand mixer until it becomes fluffy and holds it shape. You could also use a stand mixer here. Then mix in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Then the whipped cream is ready! You may not end up using all of the whipped cream. If not, just store the rest in an airtight container in the refrigerator for ice cream or pie. The cakes should be done by this point. They are not going to be perfect looking, there will be little lumps and air pockets and that is totally OK! This is a rustic cake—it’s perfect in its imperfection. Take them out of the oven and let them sit in the pans for 5 minutes. Then turn them out of the pans onto a rack to finish cooling.

4. Now everything is ready to assemble! Get one of the cakes onto a cake plate and spread a very generous layer of whipped cream onto it. Then evenly distribute the strawberries on top of the whipped cream. Put the second layer of cake on top of that and spread another very generous layer of whipped cream. Garnish the top with the 3 additional strawberries. Slice and serve it to the delight of your guests.