Healthier Strawberry Shortcake
Classic strawberry shortcake made healthier—this recipe is made with honey or maple syrup, whole grains and coconut milk. So delicious! Easily vegan, too.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 29, 2024
I was hoping to tell you that I’d bought a house today. A cute 1930s Victorian farmhouse with tall ceilings and lots of big windows. It was a blank slate on the inside, so I could have made it exactly how I wanted it to be. It was going to be the Cookie and Kate studio! I was going to have a beautiful, functional kitchen for the first time in my life! I was going to grow a garden in the side yard!
Of course, I got carried away and decorated it all before it was officially mine. Then, the owner took it off the market, for reasons that I won’t bore you with, so it is not mine. I’ll just keep living in this rent house, with its low ceilings, dingy kitchen and beige bedroom walls… which now seem even lower, darker, and more like stained cargo khaki shorts. First world problems.
On the upside, I have strawberry shortcake to share today! The idea came to me after I nailed one of the baked goods for the cookbook, which I am so excited to share with you next spring. I had to figure out how to make strawberry shortcake before summer ended. Here it is. This one tastes like classic strawberry shortcake, but it is made with whole grains and it’s naturally sweetened, too.
I used coconut milk instead of heavy cream, and there’s no butter required in the shortcake, so it’s easily made vegan. The only trick with coconut milk is that you really must use regular (as in, not light) coconut milk for the recipe to work well, and you’ll need to chill one can (not both) in the fridge overnight. Or hey, use regular whipped cream instead. Either way, while this recipe is more wholesome and nutritionally redeeming than standard strawberry shortcake, it is not a low fat recipe.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, a couple health-related notes about ingredients—please buy organic strawberries, as conventionally grown strawberries are the fruit with the highest pesticide content. Also, please buy coconut milk that comes in BPA-free cans (like the Native Forest brand and Trader Joe’s). The high fat content of coconut milk draws the BPA out of the liners, even more so than acidic tomatoes do. I was shocked when I learned that recently.
Healthier Strawberry Shortcake
Classic strawberry shortcake made healthier—this recipe is made with honey or maple syrup, whole grains and coconut milk. So delicious! It’s vegan if you use maple syrup instead of honey. Recipe yields 9 servings (so quite a bit—if you’re serving just 4 people, I’d probably prepare just 1 pound of strawberries, and enjoy leftover shortcakes as though they are sweet biscuits).
Ingredients
Shortcake
- 2 ½ cups white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ¼ cups regular (full fat) coconut milk (from a well-shaken can at room temperature*), plus more for brushing on top
- ¼ cup honey or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar (optional), for sprinkling on top
Coconut whipped cream – can be replaced with 2 cups regular whipped cream, if you prefer
- 1 can (14 ounces) regular (full fat) coconut milk or coconut cream, chilled for at least 12 hours
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Strawberries
- 2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced lengthwise, divided (reserve a few small, whole strawberries for garnishing, if you’d like)
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside. Place a medium-sized glass or metal mixing bowl in the freezer to chill for the whipped cream.
- To prepare the shortcake: In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir to combine.
- In a 2-cup liquid measuring cup or smaller mixing bowl, combine the coconut milk, honey and vanilla. Whisk to blend, then pour the wet mixture in to the dry.
- Mix with a big spoon until you have a cohesive dough. If the dough is sticky and unmanageable, let it rest for a few minutes—if it’s still being difficult, add another tablespoon of flour and stir just until incorporated.
- Lightly flour your work surface, and turn the dough over onto it. Knead the dough a few times, just enough to bring the dough together. Then, press the dough into a square shape about 1″ deep.
- Use a sharp chef’s knife to slice the dough into 3 even columns and 3 even rows, to make 9 squares. Place the squares onto your prepared baking sheet, leaving a couple inches around each one. Brush the tops of the dough liberally with coconut milk, and sprinkle them with turbinado sugar, if using. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until they are firm to the touch.
- Meanwhile, prepare the coconut whipped cream: Open the can of chilled coconut milk or coconut cream, and scoop the solid white portion into your chilled bowl, leaving the watery part behind. With an electric hand mixer, beat until smooth and relatively fluffy. Add the honey and vanilla extract and blend to combine. Refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.
- To prepare the strawberries: Place half of the sliced strawberries in a medium mixing bowl and mash them with a potato masher (or pastry cutter or big fork) until juicy. Add the remaining sliced strawberries and honey and stir to combine. Set aside until ready to serve.
- When you’re ready to serve, carefully slice the shortcakes in half lengthwise with a paring knife. Top the lower halve of each shortcake liberally with sliced strawberries, followed by whipped cream. Top with the upper halve of the shortcake. If you want to make them extra decadent, add one more dollop of whipped cream and maybe a small strawberry on top. Serve immediately.
Notes
Recipe created with references to the New York Times and King Arthur Flour.
Make it vegan: Use maple syrup instead of honey.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
My family loves this strawberry shortcake recipe. I love your original one but I also made some changed for my family members that are not favorable on wheat flower. So I did use 1 cup buckwheat and 1 wheat cup flower 1/4 coconut flower and an other 1/4 cup I mixed phyllium husk, Maca, and lacuma powder. It is ended up very digestible and tasted great.
I used this recipe over the weekend. I don’t use coconut anything, so after a little research, I substituted unsweetened almond milk and added a tablespoon of cornstarch to the dry ingredients (to make up for the thinness of the almond milk). The shortbread was easy to make and had a really good flavor, but was a little tough (probably due to the substitutions). I made the fat-free version of aquafaba whipped cream for topping (found at thehiddenveggies.com), and used maple syrup on the strawberries.
I had been craving strawberry shortcake for quite awhile (but hadn’t pursued due to my dietary restrictions). This combination was oh so satisfying – and diet compliant! Thank you for creating the “healthier” recipe that got me started on the journey…
Oh my goodness this is a perfect desert!! I’m sugar sensitive and dairy isn’t so great either;) so… you can imagine how happy this made me!! Lolol;) thank you
Hi Kate!
This recipe looks perfect, as this dessert is my mother’s favorite and I’ve been wanting to introduce a healthier alternative for when she visits. Also, your recipes in general are just the best! I absolutely love your cookbook and almost rely on it entirely at this point, as everything is so approachable, beautifully laid out, and absolutely delicious. Thank you for inspiring me to eat better and enjoy being in the kitchen more!
Hi Bethany, I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing and for your support.
I was excited to try this and bake it with my kids since it seemed simple enough. I used light spelt flour thinking this was the same measurements as I’ve subbed that in before. Boy was I wrong! The dough was so unbelievably sticky I couldn’t get it to form a dough. After adding at least an extra cup of flour, if not more, the result was still the same. Is it because there is less gluten in spelt flour and so wouldn’t ever form a dough? Kids lost interest quickly as I was trying to troubleshoot the dough. Not sure how they’ll bake up but they’re in the oven now. They were too sticky to even cut into squares. Either way – DO NOT USE LIGHT SPELT FLOUR!
I’m sorry it didn’t turn out. Thank you for sharing, I know others will find it helpful!
Hi! It is possible to make this recipe with cows milk?
Hi Shannon, I find it works best as written. Let me know if you try it and how it turns out. Sorry I can’t be more help!
Can you taste the coconut milk in the shortcakes?
I don’t find it overpowering. I hope you try it!
This was so good. I used whole wheat pastry flour and some white flour combined. I will definitely make this anytime we want shortcake. This recipe is a keeper!
Great to hear, Emily! Thank you for your review.
Thanks for this! I wasn’t sure what to make for a recent birthday and happened upon this recipe and it sounded perfect! I made it with Bob’s 1 to 1 gluten free flour and added a half teaspoon of baking soda after reading that another commenter didn’t have good results with GF flour. The dough was amazingly easy to work with! But, they only turned out okay – definitely tasty, but they didn’t rise much so they were super dense. Good enough that I’d try them again and I don’t know, maybe try a full teaspoon of bs?
You’re welcome! Thank you for sharing how you made it and what worked well for you, Ann.
Amazing! Coconut milk, how creative, and so tasty & moist! my husband asked me to make them again, and he’s generally ambivalent about what desserts I make. He really enjoyed this one, and even helped me “hunt” for cans of full fat coconut milk at the store. I’ll be making again soon!
Can I use almond flour instead of the whole wheat?
Thanks.
Hi Julie, to substitute almond flour you would need to make other modifications to the recipe, which I haven’t tested. aIt’s not a perfect one-to-one replacement, especially for recipes that rely on the gluten in wheat flour and is denser than wheat flour so it is not a 1:1 substitution. If you give it a try, I’d love to hear how it goes and what adjustments you make. I do have a collection of almond flour recipes that you can try.
I used Einkorn flour since its all I had on hand. The dough didn’t firm up enough to knead so I spread it in a greased and floured 9×9 baking dish and baked for 25 minutes and it turned out perfectly. The shortcake was delicious. Thanks for another great recipe!
Thanks for sharing your experience with Einkorn flour, Karen! I’m glad they turned out.