Strawberry Shortcake

There is strawberry shortcake, and then there is strawberry shortcake. The former is the kind I ate with gusto as a child growing up in America--a store-bought, round yellow cake with a depression for filling with strawberries and whipped cream generously squirted from a can.  The latter is the one I recently made using the recipe from my kitchen's holy book, Fannie Farmer's Cookbook.  Oh my!  Quelle difference!

Farmer's version calls for a dough very similar to the one used for American biscuits/British scones.  However, her shortcake recipe results in a fluffier inside and a crustier outside.  It is a classic when buttered warm from the oven, filled with sugared strawberries, and drenched with heavy cream. The Calm One and I both adored these deceptively down-home bundles of sublime elegance with their bowl-you-over scrumptiousness.

INGREDIENTS
Makes about 8 cakes

• Flour, white, 2 cups*/280 grams
• Baking powder, 4 teaspoons
• Salt, 1 tsp
• Sugar, 1.5 tablespoons plus additional for sugaring to taste the strawberries
• Butter, 5 tablespoons, cut small plus additional for putting on the finished cakes
• Milk, 2/3 cup*/1.5 dL (full amount may not be needed)
• Strawberries, fresh, sliced, sugared, about 1/2 cup* for each serving
• Cream, heavy, about 1/4 to 1/3 cup* for each serving

*American measure, that is, 8 oz

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F/220 degrees C. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the sugar, salt, baking powder, and flour.

Once blended, add the butter pieces.

Using your fingertips, work (usually for a few minutes) until the mixture resembles coarse sand/meal.

Add the milk slowly as you may not need it all.  The dough should just come together when cupped/pressed with your hands. Turn out on a floured surface.

Knead the dough for a minute or two until smooth. It will feel very soft.

Pat and press into an one-inch-thick circle.

Using a two-inch cookie cutter/drinking glass, cut out rounds.  Press the cutter straight down, without twisting to get that nice layered look once baked.

Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Split by gently inserting the tips of two forks, one on either side of the cake--it will easily halve.

Our strawberry harvest maintains its impressive pace as I have picked about twenty quarts in the last several weeks.

While the shortcakes are baking, wash, hull, and slice the berries. Mix with sugar to taste.

While warm, the shortcakes need to be split using two forks which ensures a rough surface which will readily absorb the butter you will now slather on both halves (same reason why English muffins should be split this way). Spoon the sugared strawberries on the bottom half, letting the berries spill onto the plate, place on the top half, and liberally pour on the heavy cream. A spoon is the perfect eating instrument as one can gently crack the thin crust and splice right through the tender shortcake while scooping up some delectable cream. They taste fine tepid and fairly good cold, but served warm, well, what can I say?  They are tremendously appealing. OK, they are to die for!

In the potager, the red currant harvest has begun.

And also the carrot and beet harvest.

The garlic has been completely harvested.

The pea harvest is also finished.  When freezing the last batch, I reserved some fresh to add to one of our staple meals, Shepherd's Pie.

In the flower garden, the honeysuckle is sporting the most fragrant blooms at the moment.

Dayo's paw is mostly mended.  However, if he is allowed to go out it is only for a few hours until there is no evidence of fragility as his paw is still tender. He prefers to take it easy, staying in our garden for the most part.

The English weather continues in La Belle France, sunshine for a minute, a sprinkle of rain the next, followed by a gust of wind, rinse and repeat.  When the sun gets swallowed up by rain clouds, Dayo jumps up on an old cupboard under the pergola. His beauty brightens up the day!

À la prochaine!

RELATED LINKS

How to harvest garlic
How to make strawberry cobbler
How to make red currant jelly & stuffed jumbo strawberries

Pesto Is Not Just Basil!

Readers may remember a recent post about my basil pesto addiction.  Though I knew that pesto can be made without basil, I never took seriously what I considered to be limp imitations.  However, though I may have some rigid propensities, thankfully my practical nature won out. Our heavy green pea harvest helped expand my culinary boundaries by inspiring me to make a fresh pea pesto. It is good, good, good!  While a basil pesto captures the sumptuousness of summer, the fresh pea version owns the very nature of spring with its vibrantly green colour and bright taste.

Tagliatelle & Fresh Pea Pesto

Think of the peas as subbing for both the basil and walnuts/pine nuts.  Add olive oil, garlic, and Parmesan.  C'est tout!

For two cups of pesto, gather 4 T of extra virgin olive oil, 1.5 cups* of lightly cooked, fresh peas, 1/2 cup* of grated Parmesan, 1/2 tsp salt, and 2-3 cloves of garlic. 
*American unit measure, that is, 8 oz

A crucial aspect, however, is not only that the peas be fresh, but that they are barely cooked. Put a pot of water on the boil. Shell and rinse the peas. Add the peas to the boiling water.  Remain by the pot and after thirty seconds test some peas which should have no raw taste and are bursting with flavour.

Drain and place them under running cold water to halt further cooking.

Put the cooked peas, grated Parmesan, olive oil, garlic, and salt in a mixing bowl.

If using a processor, blend all ingredients till mostly smooth. If using a stick mixer, garlic needs to be crushed/minced first.

Plop a nice amount onto pasta.

Mix the pesto into the pasta and add another dollop.

The Parmesan, fresh peas, garlic, and olive oil are perfect companions in this slightly sweet, flavoursome, and creamy pesto. Truly lovely stuff!

The atypical cool, rainy weather continues which means since I do not need to water, I have more time to catch up with other tasks like transplanting and weeding--and boy are there ever weeds because of all that moisture!

Pea bed is on the front left

Roses continue to delight in their unaccustomed drenching.

Ferdinand Pichard rose

Mystery rose with a glowing salmon pink colour, large quartered blooms, and clustering growth habit

As are the daisies.

And the potatoes.

Not to mention the red currants.

Dayo's recovery from his paw injury is still up and down.  We let him out for a few days and all seems well.

Dayo can see that the transplanted rhubarb appreciate their  new space

Then it is obvious that being outdoors is still a stress for his tender paw and back he goes into the house.

Dayo in the linen cupboard

À la prochaine!

Strawberry Cobbler

The cuisine of the American South is appreciated for its down-home, gustatory excellence, showcased in a favourite of ours, chicken pot pie.  Fruit cobbler, an upside-down cake, is a delicious, easy dessert from that region.  I prefer the cake batter version instead of the sometimes used American biscuit dough.

Look at that fabulous caramelized bottom crust which is the top surface when baking.

Since my cooking bible, Fannie Farmer's Cookbook, had cobbler recipes for every kind of fruit imaginable except for what is now being harvested frantically in my potager, that is, strawberries, I resorted to researching the Net.

The harvest quickly escalated to the peak of 4 quarts daily, now slowing down to 3!

I grow three varieties of strawberries presently.  It is always good to diversify via varieties for disease prevention and to get a more prolonged harvest. Two June-bearing varieties, Gariguette and Sengana are on the left with an ever bearing, the jumbo Willemse Savoureuse on the right.

Following a recipe that seemed to be the kind I wanted, that is, a cake batter one,  I made something resembling more like a clafoutis.  It was soggy and heavy in texture, but drenched with strawberry goodness, so we had no problem gobbling it up.  Its use of lemon juice and zest to liven up the cobbler was something I took away to apply to the recipe that I wound up using.

An entirely edible first attempt

Since lack of strawberries were no problem, I had another go, this time using the recipe from Fannie Farmer, following her directions for berry cobbler even though strawberries were not listed as one of the fruit substitutions.  The proportion of flour to milk was much higher and the amount of strawberries were less which made me hope that it would result in more of a cake texture with the strawberries staying put on the bottom.

The 1987 edition of my kitchen's holy book

Oh my!  It worked out exactly the way I imagined--fragrant, ruby-red sauce bubbling under fluffy yellow cake. I had thought her using an ample amount of salt was overdoing it, but it was the perfect amount, intensifying the flavour.

• Flour, white, 1.5 cups*/215 grams
• Baking powder, 2 tsp
• Butter, sweet, 12 Tbls
• Sugar, 3/4 cup*/150 grams
• Salt, 3/4 tsp
• Strawberries, fresh, sliced, 3 cups*
• Milk, 1/2 cup/1 dL
• Egg, 1
• Lemon juice, freshly squeezed, 1 tsp
• Lemon zest, 1 tsp
• Cream, ice cream, fresh sliced strawberries for garnishing

*American unit measure, that is, 8 oz

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F/190 degrees C. Wash, hull (always done after washing to prevent them from getting soggy), and slice strawberries. Dry them if they will not be sliced right away.

Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a small pan and spread evenly on the bottom of an eight-inch square pan.

Place the sliced strawberries on top of the melted butter. Mix 1/4 teaspoon of the salt with 1/4 cup of the sugar and sprinkle along with lemon juice on the strawberries. 

Mix together the flour, baking powder, remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt along with lemon zest in a large bowl.

Melt the remaining 8 tablespoons of the butter and remove from the heat, adding the milk and egg.  Beat well.

Add the liquid mixture into the dry one and beat until smooth.  It will be very thick but still fluid.

The batter will pour like ribbons over the berries which will need to be concealed. I had to angle the batter bowl when pouring to accomplish the perfect cover-up.

Bake about 30 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean and the top is wonderfully carmelized.  Cut into squares and serve bottom side up.

My insisting we needed to test its edibility while the cobbler was warm, tepid, and cold, triggered this quip from The Calm One: how about testing it for each degree of change in temperature?  It was best warm, still very good tepid, and more like delicious candy when served cold.

Tepid cobbler topped with fresh, sliced strawberries and drenched in lightly beaten cream

Coffee ice cream goes very well with warm strawberry cobbler

Besides strawberries, the pea harvest is coming in presently.

Though I will use them for specific recipes, like fresh pea pesto and fresh pea soup, I like adding them to already existing menu items like Scotch Broth.

In the flower garden, roses and peonies are showing off their frilly, pink dresses.

Queen Elizabeth hedge rose, peonies, and lavender

Red roses deepen the colour palette.

Deep red, nearly black in part, velvety L'etoile de Hollande, a robust climber with an astounding Damask fragrance.

Dayo unfortunately still needs to be kept indoors because of a paw injury, and he continues to help me in my indoor duties.

Here he is resting after his strenuous reading of a large French cookbook & alerting me to the best recipes

He also acts as my professional adviser on which bed linens from the cupboard I should choose.

À la prochaine!

RELATED POSTS

Growing strawberries
Individual, top crust strawberry pies with dark-chocolate ganache
Eton Mess...and how to make strawberry coulis
Strawberry heart scones