Strawberry Shortcake

May. The month of results and reckoning. The month I find out whether my third semester was a success or a stumble. The month Nashville shakes off the last of spring and starts flirting with summer — the air gets thicker, the afternoons get longer, and the cicadas start their annual symphony, which sounds like a million tiny chainsaws hidden in the trees.

Grades posted Friday morning. I was at the Waffle House, in the break room, on my phone, refreshing the student portal like a woman refreshing a pregnancy test — except instead of two lines I was looking for numbers, and the numbers came, and here they are: Dental Anatomy: 92. Clinical Practice: 95. Pharmacology: 94. Semester GPA: 3.87. Cumulative GPA: 3.83.

I sat in the break room and stared at the numbers. 3.83 cumulative. Not a 4.0. Not perfect. But 3.83 is the GPA of a woman who works full-time, raises two kids alone, studies after midnight, and still outperforms people half her age with twice her resources. 3.83 is not a number. It's a monument.

Tanisha got a 3.6. She called me screaming. I called Mama. Mama said, "Three point eight three?" I said, "Three point eight three." She said, "Out of four?" I said, "Yes, Mama, out of four." She said, "I'll make a cake." The woman has made three cakes for my grades now. At this rate, I'm going to need a bigger fridge and a diabetes screening. But I'll eat the cake. I'll eat every cake Lorraine Mitchell makes for every number I earn, because the cakes are not about the numbers. They're about the watching. She's been watching me try for a year and a half, and the cakes are her way of saying: I see you. I've always seen you.

One semester left. Fall 2017. Four months away. Fourteen weeks of classes, clinical hours, board exam prep, and then — graduation. The word feels impossible and inevitable at the same time. Like the word "mother" felt when I was twenty and pregnant with Chloe. It was too big for my mouth and then one day it fit perfectly and I realized it had always been mine, I just hadn't grown into it yet.

Chloe finished pre-K this week. She "graduated" — and I use the word loosely, because pre-K graduation is just a room full of five-year-olds in paper caps getting certificates they can't read, but Chloe treated it like she was receiving a Nobel Prize. She walked across the "stage" (a piece of tape on the gym floor), shook the teacher's hand, and said, "Thank you for teaching me to read." Miss Rodriguez cried. I cried. Mama cried. Jayden threw a cheerio at the kid next to him. It was perfect.

I made strawberry shortcake to celebrate — both graduations, mine and Chloe's. Fresh strawberries (on sale at Kroger, $2.99 a pound in May, God bless strawberry season), sliced and sugared, over store-bought biscuits with Cool Whip. Not fancy. Not from scratch. But sweet, and shared, and earned. Everything I make these days is earned. Every meal is proof that I'm still here, still cooking, still feeding these people, still standing in a kitchen that's too small for the life I'm building. But the life is getting bigger. And soon, the kitchen will too.

So here’s the recipe — the real one, the from-scratch version I’ve been meaning to make ever since Chloe and I shared that Cool Whip-and-store-bought-biscuit plate and she looked up at me with strawberry juice on her chin and said, “Mama, this is the best cake I ever had.” It wasn’t cake, baby. But it was ours. This time I made the biscuits myself, whipped real cream, and let the strawberries sit in sugar until they made their own syrup — because a 3.83 and a pre-K diploma deserve the full treatment.

Prep Time: 25 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes (plus 30 minutes for macerating berries) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

For the strawberries:
2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
For the biscuits:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
3/4 cup cold heavy cream
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon heavy cream (for brushing tops)
For the whipped cream:
1 and 1/2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Macerate the strawberries. Toss the sliced strawberries with 1/3 cup sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl. Stir gently, cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 hours). The berries will release their juices and create a sweet syrup.
Preheat the oven. Set your oven to 425°F (220°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Make the biscuit dough. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the cold butter cubes and cut them in using a pastry cutter or two forks until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining.
Add the wet ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup heavy cream, the egg, and vanilla. Pour into the flour mixture and stir with a fork until just combined — do not overmix. The dough will be shaggy and slightly sticky.
Shape and bake. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat it to about 3/4-inch thickness. Cut into 8 rounds using a 3-inch biscuit cutter (or a drinking glass). Place on the prepared baking sheet. Brush tops with 1 tablespoon cream and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until golden on top. Let cool on a wire rack.
Whip the cream. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the cold whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2 to 3 minutes. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
Assemble. Split each biscuit in half horizontally. Place the bottom half on a plate, spoon strawberries and their juices generously over the top, add a big dollop of whipped cream, then set the biscuit top on at a slight angle. Spoon a little more juice over everything and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry Shortcake — A 3.83 Kind of Sweet