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This easy gluten free strawberry shortcakes recipe is for the classic dessert that everyone loves with a biscuit-like sweet pastry split and filled with strawberries and cream.
Since no one was excited enough about regular gluten free biscuits with strawberries and cream, I started baking chopped strawberries right into the sweet shortcakes. Now everyone asks for them by name!
my take
Gluten Free Strawberry Shortcakes vs. Layered Cake
During berry season, the flavors of vanilla, strawberries and cream are so fresh and popular that I've combined them in two totally different dessert recipes.
First, this recipe is for gluten free strawberry shortcake, a biscuit-style sweet dessert split in half and filled with strawberries and whipped cream. Unlike most other shortcake desserts, there are berries baked right into the biscuits, but it isn't an actual cake at all.
Then, I took those same flavors and made them into a recipe for gluten free strawberry shortcake cake. It's a true rich vanilla cake, layered with whipped cream and macerated strawberries, and is perfect for summer birthdays.
If you're looking for the classic gluten free strawberry shortcake dessert, read on. If you were hoping for an actual cake, layered with berries and cream, click over there!
Recipe ingredients
The recipe card has all of the specific ingredient amounts, but here are a few notes to keep in mind as you read through the ingredients you'll need to make these strawberries and cream biscuits:
Gluten free flour: Any well-balanced all purpose gluten free flour blend with finely ground rice flour should work here. We add some cornstarch to it for lighter biscuits.
Granulated sugar: Helps sweeten the biscuits and bring out the natural flavor of the strawberries.
Butter: Grated when very cold, the butter adds flavor and makes the biscuits light.
Strawberries: Chopped strawberries in the biscuits add flavor and moisture.
Buttermilk: Adds flavor and tenderness to the pastry, and brings the biscuit dough together.
Whipped cream: Beat cold heavy whipping cream into creamy stiff peaks with some confectioners' sugar for flavor without any heaviness.
How to make gluten free strawberry shortcakes
To make the biscuits for gluten free strawberry shortcakes, whisk together a gluten free flour blend with cornstarch and xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt and some white sugar.
Add grated cold butter, and chopped strawberries. Toss to coat the berries and butter in the dry ingredients.
To the dry ingredients, add cold buttermilk and mix in to combine. The biscuit dough should still be cold. If anything feels soft or warm, chill the dough before shaping it.
Separate the dough into 10 equal portions, each fitting into the palm of one hand. Use clean hands to shape each lightly into a disk about 3 1/2 inches wide.
Don't squeeze the dough or the biscuits will be hard. Place on a lined baking sheet. Chill the shaped biscuits for about 10 minutes.
Bake the cold biscuits in a 400°F oven for about 20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown and firm. Allow to cool while you make the filling.
In a large bowl, place cold heavy whipping cream and beat with a bit of powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.
Split each cooled shortcake biscuit in half horizontally, add a dollop of whipped cream some sliced strawberries. Serve immediately.
My Pro Tip
Expert tips
Keep your ingredients cold
Like all pastries, these biscuits need cold ingredients, especially clumps of cold butter, to become light and flaky in the oven. The dry ingredients surrounding the cold butter and cold chopped strawberries get pushed up and out when placed in a hot oven, leaving the biscuits crisp and light.
Use buttermilk or a near-perfect substitute
If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can replace it with half plain yogurt and half milk, by volume. That works for dairy-free buttermilk subs, too! You can also use an equal amount of plain kefir. Gluten free pastry needs the right amount of moisture, and buttermilk has it.
Don't overwork the dough
Handle the dough with a light touch, or your biscuits will be tough. If you handle the dough too much, the heat of your hands will melt the butter—and the biscuits will leak a lot of butter and be flat and hard.
Make homemade whipped cream
Homemade whipped cream tastes better than store bought, and has less sugar than in canned whipped cream. That way, it complements the biscuits instead of overpowering them.
substitutions
Ingredient Substitutions
Dairy free
To make this recipe as a dairy free option, you'll need to replace the butter, buttermilk, and heavy whipping cream.
For the butter, I recommend using vegan butter from either Melt or Miyoko's Kitchen brand. In place of buttermilk, use half nondairy plain yogurt and half nondairy unsweetened milk (my favorite is almond milk). In place of heavy whipping cream for the whipped cream, use chilled coconut cream and whip it according to these instructions to get a beautiful, dairy free whipped cream.
Cornstarch-free
You can use potato starch or arrowroot in place of cornstarch. Be sure you're using a confectioners' sugar is cornstarch-free.
Refined sugar free
There's so little granulated sugar in the biscuit recipe that you can either leave it out entirely or try replacing it with Lankato brand monkfruit sweetener. In place of the confectioners' sugar in the whipped cream filling, you can try Lankato brand monkfruit powdered sugar alternative.
Gluten Free Strawberry Shortcakes Recipe
Equipment
- Handheld mixer with beaters
- Box grater
- Metal biscuit cutter
Ingredients
For the biscuits
- 2 ⅝ cup (368 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, (See Recipe Notes; click link for full details on appropriate blends) plus more for sprinkling, if necessary
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum, omit if your blend already contains it
- 6 tablespoons (54 g) cornstarch
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 12 tablespoons (168 g) cold unsalted butter, grated on a standard, large-hole grater
- 4 ounces ripe strawberries, fresh, chopped and chilled (See Recipe Notes)
- 1 ¼ cups (10 fluid ounces) buttermilk, chilled (plus more as necessary)
For serving
- 1 ½ cups (12 fluid ounces) heavy whipping cream, chilled
- 2 tablespoons (14 g) confectioners’ sugar
- 8 ounces fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside.
- In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar, and whisk to combine well.
- Add the chilled and grated butter, and toss to combine, breaking up any clumps in the grated butter.
- Add the chopped strawberries, and toss again to combine. To make the biscuit dough easier to handle, try flattening some chopped strawberries against the side of the bowl.
- Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add 1 cup + two tablespoons of the buttermilk.
- Mix in the buttermilk until just combined. Add more buttermilk by the teaspoon as necessary to moisten all the dough.
To shape drop biscuits.
- Working quickly, so the dough doesn’t get warm, divide the dough into 10 equal portions, each about the size of a baseball.
- Gently shape each portion into a disk without packing the dough, or the biscuits will be dense.
- Place the biscuits 2 inches apart from one another on the prepared baking sheet.
To shape cutout biscuits.
- Turn the dough out onto a large piece of parchment paper on a large, flat surface. Working quickly, press the dough together into a flat disk, pressing any crumbly bits together and into the disk.
- Sprinkle the top of the disk very lightly with gluten free flour, and spread evenly over the top. Using a large rolling pin, roll the dough into a rectangle about 1.5-inches thick.
- Dust the edges of a a metal biscuit cutter or large cookie cutter with more flour, and use it to cut out rounds of dough about in one swift motion per cut.
- Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet, and place about 2 inches apart from one another on the prepared baking sheet.
To finish the biscuits.
- Place the baking sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes or until firm. The raw biscuits can also be frozen in a single layer at this point, then placed in a tightly sealed bag, stored in the freezer for up to a month, and baked from frozen.
- Place the baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven and bake until the biscuits are puffed, very lightly golden brown and firm to the touch (about 20 minutes).
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool before slicing each biscuit in half horizontally.
To make the whipped cream.
- In a large, clean bowl, place the chilled cream. Beat on medium-low speed with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form.
- Add the confectioners’ sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. Keep the mixer speed on medium-low and you will create a much more stable whipped cream.
To assemble the strawberry shortcakes.
- Place the sliced berries and fresh whipped cream both in the center of each cut biscuit and on top. Serve immediately.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Make ahead/leftovers
Storage instructions
Only slice and fill those gluten free strawberry shortcakes that you know you're going to serve right away. Any leftover baked, but whole, sweet biscuits can easily be frozen for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature then refresh in a 300°F toaster oven.
The raw, shaped biscuits can be frozen in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, then piled into a freezer-safe bag. You can bake them right from the freezer, but you may need to add a couple of minutes of baking time.
FAQs
If you can buy chopped frozen strawberries, you can use those in the biscuits themselves. If your frozen strawberries are whole, you can't use them because you won't be able to chop them without defrosting them, when they'll become limp and won't firm up again.
Make sure your strawberry pieces in the biscuits aren't too big, though, or they'll prevent the biscuit dough from holding together properly during baking.
Since strawberry shortcakes are biscuits layered with whipped cream and strawberries, they don't work as a cake. If you'd like to make a cake, try our gluten free strawberry shortcake cake. Or try our gluten free strawberry cake with roasted strawberries baked in to the top of the cake, and top with fresh berries and whipped cream.
Yes! You can leave out the strawberries, but you'll need all the buttermilk plus some additional to moisten all of the dry ingredients. You can also make classic drop or rolled biscuits using our gluten free biscuits recipe, then slice them in half and add berries and whipped cream. I recommend increasing the sugar in that recipe from 1 tablespoon to 1/2 cup (50 grams) for a sweeter biscuit.
Great Recipe! Thank you Nicole.
I’m unable to use Xantham Gum as it doesn’t agree with me. Normally I use gluten free flour and the rest of the ingredients. Usually there isn’t a problem. No doubt there are recipes that call for xantham gum but I have to avoid those .
Thank you for the wonderful recipes.
Mimi
I just made these and had to jump right onto the comment section to tell everyone how delicious and easy these are! I am already thinking about other berries to try! I used the Miyoko butter substitute, which was mt first time trying that brand, and they are moist! Thank you Nicole for another amazing receipe!
Thank you so much for sharing that, Patty! Miyoko’s Kitchen vegan butter is really a game-changer when it comes to dairy-free baking, especially dairy-free pastries. So glad you enjoyed them!!
Really a nice idea — incorporate the strawberries into the biscuit dough! Among your suggestions for other fruit that could be used, I think fresh, tree-ripe peaches (or, even better, nectarines) would be absolutely delicious. I look forward to trying them.
Thanks also for including suggestions for sugar substitutes; I have been substituting a combination of sucralose, Stevia-in-the-Raw, and the Lankato brand Monkfruit substitutes (2:1:1 ratio) for sweeteners in several of your GF recipes with good approval. [Metric values for 1 cup of each: Sucralose 24 g, Stevia-in-the-Raw 24 g, & Monkfruit 192 g; for Truvia’s Stevia-leaf Confectioner’s sugar 128 g].
Hi I live over 30 miles to the nearest store which carries the dairy free substitutes suggested for butter. Is it possible to use coconut oil instead?
I’m afraid you can’t use coconut oil as a butter substitute in pastry, no, Karen. You can try ordering Spectrum brand nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening online, or just pick up the proper products the next time you’re in the store.
This was delicious! I made just two slight variations. I didn’t have buttermilk, so used 2% Greek yogurt and 2% milk (5oz ea) and added 1/2 Tblsp of lemon curd (to use up the last bit of the jar). I made 11 of them, the last one being my test sample – had to eat it plain to judge, right? SO DELICIOUS! Can’t wait to top with more berries and whipped cream!
Of course, you have to eat one to make sure it’s not going to poison anyone, Melissa. ?
Can you replace the buttermilk with milk?
No, you can’t, Nienke. Please see the Ingredients and substitutions section for how to replace the buttermilk if you don’t have any, whether you can have dairy or you can’t.
Just made these yesterday and they were sooo good! Used your suggestions to substitute Myoko’s butter alternative, as well as using half non-dairy unsweetened yogurt and half unsweetened almond milk. I added the chopped strawberries, too. They were so good I just had one warmed for breakfast! Thanks so much, Nicole!
I’m so glad the nondairy suggestions turned out well for you, Rich! I really am so grateful that Miyoko’s Kitchen brand products are so widely available now, since they’re so so good. And the “buttermilk” mixture is always a win. Thanks again for sharing that!
Pretty good – light, fairly moist but a bit less tasty than I would like. I suspect biscuits aren’t suppose to be full of flavor .. why you have the toppings. Still I would add a bit more sugar and salt and I find adding chopped walnuts adds to the texture. I used cool whip instead of cream.. stick with the cream.
Hi, Esther, it sounds like maybe you were looking for a different sort of recipe altogether. These biscuits have some sugar, but normally biscuits have a touch or none at all. They are mostly about the texture.
Hello, I’ve been looking for a biscuit recipe I can make up and freeze the dough in advance to have on hand for quick breakfast, I see these can be frozen but if I wanted a traditional plain savory biscuit and cut the sugar would I need to make any adjustments/substitutions or would it be fine as is just less sweet? Thanks, we are baking these currently and I can’t wait to try them
They look very lovely… will have to try them soon with some fresh strawberries from the patch.