This homemade Easy Vegan Strawberry Shortcake is so much better than storebought and is oil-free and naturally sweetened! You only need 8 ingredients and about 30 minutes to make this delicious summer dessert!
EASY VEGAN STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
It is strawberry season and what better way to enjoy it than with this Easy Vegan Strawberry Shortcake that is also oil-free! That’s right, no butter and no oil. After posting these Vegan Biscuits, I knew I wanted to tweak them to turn into a sweet shortcake. I changed the recipe up a bit. This vegan shortcake is fresh, homemade and much better and healthier than a store-bought variety. My mom used to give us this a lot as a dessert and the whipped cream was always my favorite part.
Since my original biscuit recipe contains yogurt and many of you seem to have trouble finding yogurt, I decided to change up the recipe so that yogurt isn’t needed here. Oh my, these are divine! These are lightly sweetened and sweet just enough, making them the perfect shortcake for sweet whipped cream and fresh strawberries. They are naturally sweetened with maple syrup, coconut milk instead of butter or oil and a touch of apple cider vinegar for extra flavor. This worked beautifully to make up for the extra fat that the yogurt had provided in my original recipe. In fact, I even prefer the texture of these.
Unlike traditional strawberry shortcake recipes, I did not macerate the strawberries. This basically means letting the strawberries sit in a bit of sugar to get them extra juicy and sweet. They are already naturally sweet and delicious! And then, when you top them with sweet cream and a shortcake, well, that is plenty sweet and juicy for me. But feel free to soak your strawberries in some sugar first if you prefer.
My daughter loved these SO MUCH and I hope you do too.
INGREDIENTS NEEDED
(full amounts on recipe card below)
- Regular all-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Full fat coconut milk
- Pure maple syrup
- Apple cider vinegar
- Non-dairy whipped cream: Homemade Coconut Whipped Cream.
- Fresh strawberries
HOW TO MAKE VEGAN STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Step 1: Add the dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk well.
Step 2: Since coconut cream and water separate in cans of full-fat coconut milk, you will need to pour the contents from the can in a blender or bowl until all the water and cream are thoroughly mixed and smooth. Then measure.
Step 3: Add the measured coconut milk, syrup and vinegar to a small bowl and whisk until smooth.
Step 4: Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix until a rough, shaggy dough forms. Use your hands to mold the dough together inside the bowl until a smooth ball forms.
Step 5: Lightly flour a work surface and add the dough to it. Pat it down into a smooth round shape about 7 inches round, which should be 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Be careful not to flatten it too much, or you’ll end up with short biscuits. Measure the height of the dough if needed.
Step 6: Use a biscuit cutter to get 6 biscuits.
Step 7: Place the biscuits onto a pan lined with parchment paper just touching each other. Lightly brush the tops of the biscuits with extra coconut milk.
Step 8: Bake for 13-15 minutes until light gold brown on top.
Step 9: Cool for 10 minutes and slice and serve with whipped cream and strawberries.
MORE VEGAN SUMMER DESSERTS
- Best Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake
- 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
- Vegan Birthday Cake Ice Cream
- Vegan Lemon Ice Cream
- Vegan Chocolate Cream Pie
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Easy Vegan Strawberry Shortcake (Oil-Free!)
Ingredients
- 2 cups (256g) regular all-purpose flour
- 2 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (150g) full-fat room temperature coconut milk (SEE Notes below)
- 3 tablespoons (60g) pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon (5g) apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 cups whipped cream (SEE Notes below)
- 2 cups freshly sliced strawberries (SEE Notes)
NOTE
- I always recommend to use a scale for accuracy when baking, following MY gram weights listed, since we all measure differently. This is especially important here so that your dough is the right moisture level, etc. Otherwise you run the risk of adding too much flour when scooping. No need to compare cups to the weight, just use the bowl and scale.
- I use this scale.
Instructions
- First, make sure you are using a fresh can of room temperature, NOT COLD, full-fat coconut milk. With full-fat coconut milk, the coconut cream will separate from the water in the can. You need to scrape out all of the water and cream from the can into a blender or another bowl and either blend until smooth or whisk very well. You don't want lumps of milk and uneven water or the texture of the biscuits will be off.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- To a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk very well.
- To a separate small bowl, add the coconut milk, syrup and apple cider vinegar. Whisk until smooth and evenly mixed. Pour the liquid over the flour mixture and use a spoon to stir until it comes together mostly in a shaggy, rough looking dough, as pictured. There will be some loose pieces. At this point, use your hands to mold the dough together inside the bowl, flipping and rotating it until all the pieces and dough comes together into a smooth ball. At the same time, being careful not to overwork the dough, should take just a few seconds! The dough will be slightly sticky but should be easy to handle. DON'T taste the dough, just don't. Otherwise, you will eat it all.
- Lightly flour a work surface, you don't need much, as the dough should be very easy to work with. Place the dough on the surface and pat it down into a round shape about 7 inches round and the thickness should be between 3/4 and 1 inch (see photo). Use your hands here, do not roll the dough out with a rolling pin, as that flattens out the lightness and air. Again, you are only forming it into the shape, not kneading. Measure to make sure you have the right thickness so you get 6 tall biscuits.
- Use a 2 3/4 inch biscuit cutter and press down into the dough and lift up. You should get 4 biscuits the first time. Piece the excess dough together back into a ball and gently pat it back down to 3/4 to 1 inch to get 6 biscuits total. If you make more than 6 biscuits, that means you flattened the dough too much and your biscuits will be thinner.
- Place each biscuit on the pan, just touching each other, as pictured.
- Lightly brush the tops of each biscuit with extra coconut milk.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes or until risen and have a light golden brown color on top. Be very careful about overbaking or they can turn dry.
- Cool 10 minutes and then slice each biscuit in half. Spread with whipped cream and sliced strawberries. Add the top biscuit and put more whipped cream and strawberries on top! These are best eaten the same day.
Notes
- Macerate Strawberries: Unlike traditional strawberry shortcake recipes, I did not macerate the strawberries. This basically means letting the strawberries sit in a bit of sugar to get them extra juicy and sweet. They are already naturally sweet and delicious! And then, when you top them with sweet cream and a shortcake, well, that is plenty sweet and juicy for me. But feel free to soak your strawberries in some sugar first if you prefer. Add 1 tablespoon or so to the strawberries and let them sit while you make the biscuits.
- Coconut Milk: Biscuits rely on fat for them to be soft and fluffy. Coconut milk is a much different kind of fat than any other fat. It is buttery and it is richer. It is also low-protein, which means it creates a better, softer and fluffier texture. Do not sub this with other milks or you will end up with a dry or chewy biscuit.
- Coconut Milk Brands: I like Thai Kitchen and Taste of Thai brands, both work great here. The full fat milk will have 12-14g of fat per serving on the can. That is how you know you are getting the correct kind. Even with that, these are still significantly less fat than traditional biscuits since there is only 1/2 cup in the biscuit recipe. DO NOT use the Polar brand, it is all stabilizers and additives and not pure coconut milk.
- Whipped Cream: For the whipped cream, you can use Reddi Wip Non-dairy Almond Whipped Cream) which is sold at Kroger, Walmart and likely several other stores. I love, love it. I also like the So Delicious cocowhip sold in a tub at many places. OR, use my Homemade Coconut Whipped Cream if you want.
You are an absolute genius!!! Thank you for this recipe, I guess I have to go get some all purpose flour and full fat coconut milk tomorrow 🙂
Aww thank you Megan, I can’t wait to hear after you make them!!
Can you make this with Gluten Free flour?
I’m sorry but I haven’t tested this with any gluten-free flour blends, so I can’t say how it would compare. When I perfect my gluten-free version, I will post it!
I have spelt flour, will that work alright?
This looks beautiful and delicious!! 🙂
You are welcome to try it, but I can’t vouch for the result since I’ve only tested these with all-purpose flour. Spelt will likely result in a much sticker dough and they will have a strong whole grain taste as well as be more crumbly since they have a lot less gluten than regular flour.
Is there any way to make this gluten free?
I’m sorry but I haven’t tested this with any gluten-free flour blends, so I can’t say how it would compare. When I perfect my gluten-free version, I will post it!
Hi, I love the simplicity of this…… can you suggest a non-wheat flour sub for those of us who are allergic? Thanks!
Hi Carol! I’m sorry but I haven’t tested this with any gluten-free flour blends, so I can’t say how it would compare. When I perfect my gluten-free version, I will post it!
PS….. wondering if tigernut might work?
Hi, can gluten free flour be used instead of regular flour??
I am allergic to wheat. Thank you.
I’m sorry but I haven’t tested this with any gluten-free flour blends, so I can’t say how it would compare. When I perfect my gluten-free version, I will post it!
Hooray a recipe with regular flour, looks wonderful!!! I can’t wait to make this one, the strawberries are so juicy & fragrant right now. I love your recipes, but am somewhat frustrated with the desserts because they call for exotic flours and other ingredients that I just don’t have on hand. It just ends up costing too much money for things I may not use ever again.
Yes, not sure if you’ve seen several of my last several posts, but the Lemon cake, biscuits, pizza crust are all made with regular flour! I’ve been posting many more things lately with white flour since during quarantine, it made things simpler. Since the lemon cake made with regular flour became so popular, I decided to do more recipes with it! So, yes, this is a very simple flour recipe. I do a lot of recipes with almond flour and oat flour or rice flour, I wouldn’t exactly call those exotic though, haha, especially since a large amount of my readers are gluten-free and use them regular. But since I have such a large amount of readers with different allergies or NON allergies, I try to share recipes of ALL kinds for everybody. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to make every single recipe that will meet everybody’s needs, but having a large variety on here helps hopefully to do that!
I’m actually sad to see more and more of your recipes with white flour. After looking through several strawberry shortcakes that were Vegan, but full of white flour and refined stuff, I thought for sure I could come here and find one that was truly “healthy”. I used to LOVE coming here, knowing I could have anything that you posted. It was my “safe place” and I have been so disappointed lately when I get excited about a recipe, only to find it has unhealthy white flour in it. I understand that you can’t please everyone, but this is what made your blog special! There are already tons of Vegan blogs out there that share stuff made with refined ingredients and I loved that yours was a unique platform being Vegan, oil free, AND free from all the refined stuff.
I understand what you are saying Alynna, but I create recipes based off of feedback and requests, in addition to what I myself would eat. While true, that nearly all my recipes for years have not used hardly any white flour, this year has been so different of course because of the coronavirus and limited ingredient supplies. When I first posted my lemon cake, I explained at that time that there was an influx of requests for simple recipes using regular flour. That lemon cake ended up becoming my most popular cake I’ve ever posted. I still create and post gluten-free and healthier desserts, as there are hundreds of them on my blog. But I also create recipes for everybody who I am getting enough requests for. There’s a reason why I have such a variety of recipes with different flours on my blog, because I work extremely hard to create a variety for readers. 🙂 And while true, there are plenty of recipes online that use white flour, the big difference is 99% likely have oil and butter, which mine never do! These shortcakes, for example, have no butter like nearly every other recipe online, so they are considerably less fat, still making them a healthier option. Also, I’m big on classics and sometimes, there is just nothing that will perform and taste quite the same as using white flour. So I’ll use it for classic taste and texture for all the readers I have that like simple no-fuss recipes BUT also continue to create the healthier versions. And always keeping them without added oil. With all that said, I’ve been working in a healthier biscuit recipe for awhile here for this recipe and it’s much more difficult and time consuming. But I will post it once it’s perfected. Gluten-free healthier recipes tend to require a lot more testing so that they still come out tasting delicious and not gross sad subs, haha. Sadly, I cannot make everybody happy with every single recipe, which is proved by both your comment and Lavender’s, but I do work extremely hard to provide lots of options for all.
I always get my hopes up when I see oil free, only to be disappointed when I see coconut milk 😭
Sorry, but it’s very very hard to replace oil and butter and get that fluffy richness the way coconut does. This is especially true when using white all purpose flour. In many recipes that I use almond flour, coconut can be skipped a lot since the almond flour provides so much moisture and fat, but since I wanted these biscuits to be nut-free, coconut had to be used. It’s hard to meet everybody’s desires with every recipe. But I’m trying tomorrow myself a trial for those that are allergic to coconut. All these testing trials take a lot of time, so I do my best to get them up when I can. Thanks for checking the recipe out!
Made these with my son and they turned out great and delicious! We used the recipe for the icing too and that also turned out great! Yum!
That is so wonderful to hear Melynda, thank you!!
I grew up in Western New York and this is how I remember strawberry shortcake as a child! These biscuits were so easy to make and delicious! I admit I tried to use gluten free flour because it was all I had and it was not nearly as successful as all purpose flour. The all purpose flour made them double in size and brown beautifully. I can think of a bunch of meals these biscuits would be great with but for now I’m going to enjoy strawberry shortcake season!!!
Yay, what a lovely review Heather, thank you so much for making these!!
Made this for dessert tonight, and even with my sparse quarantine pantry I had all the ingredients! Delicious!
That is awesome, thanks for the feedback Anne!
These are absolutely delicious! My non-vegan family devoured them. I will make them again for sure.
Delicious! My husband’s from the south and I am not so a (Vegan!) biscuit recipe was much needed!! are used a very rich homemade cashew milk instead of coconut milk and they turned out great!!
So very happy to hear this Christine!!
Made this recipe yesterday for three dear friends and it was a big hit — it turned out beautiful and was so delicious and easy to make. What a perfect summer treat! The berries needed no sugar (strawberries love the So California climate), I used canned coco-whip purchased at Trader Joe’s. Brandi, you are gifted chef and have really figured out how to make luscious food with some daunting restrictions. XXOO
Awww, this was the sweetest feedback ever, thank you so much LavenderBee for this amazing review! SO happy to hear everybody loved these!
Once again, you’ve come up with a BOMB recipe that tastes EVEN better than I thought it ever would. I made this last night for my husband’s birthday and it was INCREDIBLE and so easy to make! I’ve never made biscuits or any kind of bread before so I was nervous but they were so easy! I didn’t have a biscuit cutter, so I made due with a mason jar cap and a knife and though they weren’t as pretty as yours they tasted AMAZING. The biscuits themselves have that addicting don’t-taste-because-you-can’t-stop-eating-them quality and combined with strawberries and whipped cream they were perfectly sweet and delicious! Thank you for another incredible recipe!! I now make at least two of your recipes every single week and I’m definitely one of your biggest fans.
Aww sorry I missed this comment Suzanne! Thank you so much for your kind words and review! So happy you loved these!!
I made these. They are delicious.
Woohoo, so glad Janet, thank you!
The homemade coconut whipped cream you link to at the end of the recipe is going to a recipe of yours with frosting. Is that the wrong link or is the whipped cream recipe the same as the frosting?
Yes, that is correct. It’s the correct link going to that whipped cream on top of the cake that was used.
What can I use if I don’t have a biscuit cutter? Would the rim of a cup work?
Yes, just use one with similar measurement and coat the rim with flour to help prevent sticking.
This was delicious! I used “lite” canned coconut milk because that’s all I had on hand, and the biscuits still came out great – nice and fluffy. I used light Cocowhip for the whipped cream. Great summer dessert treat!
So happy you loved them!
I just made these awesome, flaky shortcake biscuits! I used Monkfruit sweetener instead of cane sugar and pastry flour because that’s all I had. My husband thought they were just delicious and very tender with the perfect amount of sweetness.
I did finely dice the strawberries and sweetened them slightly with Monkfruit Sweetener because they were a little too tart.
Thank you so much for posting this! It’s definitely a keeper! I would like to try these with fresh peaches or berries!
Did you delete the coconut whipped cream recipe? The link isn’t working
Hi! The link is working. It takes you to my pumpkin cake recipe, which also has the whipped cream recipe on that post.