Home Made Shortcake Biscuits

Teach your students to "Bake with Love," using Clabber Girl Baking Powder. Your students can learn to make delicious shortcake biscuits "from scratch" in a 45-minute lab. A rewarding project for beginners and advanced students, these sweetheart biscuits will be a tasty hit with family and friends!

1. Copy this page for each student to use in class and at home.

2. Check supply of Clabber Girl and other ingredients for each kitchen unit.

3. Each unit will need a 2" to 3" heart-shaped cookie cutter for our "sweetheart" version (or use any standard biscuit cutter).

4. Build student interest with a red and white "Bake with Love" bulletin board. Add recipes and pictures of other quick breads.

This lesson plan refers to the recipe for:
Old-Fashioned Shortcake Biscuits.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2-1/2 teaspoons Clabber Girl Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup milk
1 tablespoon soft butter or margarine

Mixing Directions:

Sift flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt together in mixing bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add milk and egg. Blend lightly with a fork only until flour is moistened and dough pulls away from side of bowl. Turn out on lightly floured board. Knead lightly (30 seconds). Roll 3/4 inch thick. Cut with floured biscuit cutter. Place close together on lightly greased baking pan. Brush tops with butter or margarine.

Baking Directions:

Bake at 475° F (very hot oven) 12-15 minutes.

STUDENT LEARNING:

1. The day before the lab, discuss how fast and easy it is to make quick breads and what the purpose is of certain ingredients. Explain the double action of Clabber Girl, the baking powder that rises both in the mixing bowl and in the oven for more uniform baked goods.

2. Read the recipe with the class, stressing how important it is to measure ingredients accurately and what can make biscuits tough (overworking dough, using too much flour, or not cutting in shortening quickly). To assure even thickness of biscuits for beginners, place dough between two jelly roll pans so the rolling pin ends rest on the edge of the pans. The biscuits will be the thickness of the pans.

3. Send students to labs, and watch the beautiful results they get when they bake with Clabber Girl Baking Powder.

4. During baking, warm the cherry pie filling (or another fruit filling of your choice) to spoon over warm shortcake biscuits. Supervise clean-up.

5. Serve it! While students taste the delicious results of their baking, review the cost of preparing this item, and the fact that "scratch baked" goods taste better. Encourage students to make this recipe at home for family and friends as they "Bake with Love," using Clabber Girl, the baking powder with the balanced double action.