Which Strawberry Shortcake Recipe Is Worth the Fruit? We Put 4 to the Test

You may think all strawberry shortcake recipes are the same. After all, you only need three components to make the classic summer dessert: a cake component (like shortcakes, angel food cake, or biscuits), sliced strawberries, and whipped cream. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are lots of ways to make a great strawberry shortcake, and we put 4 well-known recipes to the test in the Better Homes & Gardens test kitchen. Find out which one is worth running out and buying a carton of strawberries for.

The 4 Strawberry Shortcake Recipes We Tried

Best for a Crowd: Driscoll’s Classic Strawberry Shortcake

When this strawberry shortcake entered the room, there were so many oohs and aahs. It’s a showstopping stack made with round vanilla cakes, chopped strawberries, and homemade whipped cream. Rather than assembling individual shortcakes, this recipe calls for slicing and serving as you would a layer cake. We found that the recipe wasn’t complicated to make but did require more assembly time than the other three options.

Our recipe tasters love the flavor of the shortcake here but overall found the dessert dry. Our tasters unanimously agreed that using macerated strawberries, rather than just chopped strawberries, would make this dessert more moist. And macerating strawberries is as simple as sprinkling the sliced fruit with sugar for an hour or two before assembling to help draw out the juices.

Bottom line: This strawberry shortcake recipe is visually stunning but a bit dry. We think using macerated strawberries instead of plain sliced strawberries would make it a home run recipe. I’ll absolutely use this recipe with that one tweak next time I’m entertaining a crowd. It definitely brings the wow factor.

Best Shortcut Recipe: Bisquick Strawberry Shortcake

I’ve shared my love for Bisquick’s back-of-the-box strawberry shortcake recipe before. There’s something so nostalgic about the freeform drop biscuits, and I love that they’re not overly sweet. The rest of the recipe is very straightforward: top the biscuits with macerated strawberries and homemade whipped cream.

This recipe makes a great weeknight dessert and is quick to whip up any time you need something sweet. As one reviewer put it best, “This is the only shortcake you will ever need to make. Why take the time to make it from scratch when this recipe is just as good and takes a little less time?”

Bottom line: We did find that other shortcakes themselves were a bit more flavorful, but this recipe gives the maximum flavor reward for the most minimal effort.

Best Nontraditional Shortcake: Christina Tosi’s Strawberry Shortcake

Right away, this strawberry shortcake recipe stood apart from the rest. Rather than the fluffy biscuits we’re used to, Christina Tosi of Milk Bar bakes up thinner, powdered-sugar coated shortbread biscuits. And we loved them! As one reviewer raved, “These are very buttery and delicious with nice crisp edges. I loved how soft and tender they were, like a mix between a cake and a shortcake.”

The rest of the recipe stays pretty traditional with one notable exception. Tosi adds sour cream to her sweetened whipped cream. The tang and acidity it adds plays well with the sweetness of the macerated strawberries. I’ll definitely be making my homemade whipped cream this way in the future.

Bottom line: Our recipe testers loved how buttery these homemade shortcakes were. A few simple steps and ingredient additions help set this recipe for strawberry shortcakes apart from the rest.

100% Worth the Fruit: Barefoot Contessa’s Strawberry Shortcakes

Ina Garten has done it again! Her recipe for strawberry shortcakes earned the top spot among our taste testers. In the end, her biscuits were the most flavorful and flaky of any we tried. I have a hunch that the 1 1/2 sticks of butter in the recipe have something to do with that. And Ina doesn’t shy away from flavor in this shortcake recipe, from the generous amount of salt in the biscuits to the Grand Marnier liqueur in the macerated strawberries.

Ina likes to serve this “deconstructed” in martini glasses, but we ate it just as you would any other shortcake recipe. It was the first dessert to disappear from the tasting and the one we kept going back to for seconds and thirds.

Bottom line: Ina Garten’s classic strawberry shortcake recipe was our hands-down favorite. The flaky biscuits and orange liqueur-macerated strawberries made it our top choice.