Strawberry Shortcake

I thought my husband would want an ice cream cake for his birthday, but this year he surprised me when he told my little one he wanted a fresh cake with strawberries and cream.  At first I couldn't tell if he was serious, but I held him to his words and decided to make just that for his birthday cake.

I had never made a cake like that before, so I took to the internet.  After browsing several recipes, I settled on one by Martha Stewart.  I've always trusted her cupcake recipes (I have a cookbook of hers and every cupcake turns out amazing - no matter what!), and it seemed to have pretty good reviews.  So I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

The outcome was a dense cake with a lot of flavour and freshness to it.  Below is basically her recipe with some modifications based on the reviews and other things.  You can view the original recipe here.
This recipe is definitely a keeper that we will make again!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (plus more for the pans)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plus more for the pans)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs, plus 2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup milk

for the filling
1 pound strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced (a few more never hurt either!)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp  unflavoured gelatin (from a 1/4-oz envelope)
1-1/2 cups heavy cream (or up to 473ml carton)
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Butter bottom of two (2) 8" round cake pans, and line with parchment paper.  Butter and flour paper and sides.  (Alternately you can bake it in 1 pan, double the cooking time and then slice it in half horizontally using a serrated knife.)

2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

3. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter and 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides as necessary.  Beat in vanilla.

4. With mixer on low, alternately add flour mixture in 3 parts and milk in 2 parts, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix just until combined.  Spread batter in prepared pans (the batter is quite thick).

5.  Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 15 minutes (or 30-35 minuets if you baked it in one pan).  [The cake will look very light in colour; it doesn't brown much.]  Cool in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto wire racks to cool completely. [At this point slice the cake if you used on pan.  Place the bottom half cut side up, and the top half will be placed cut side down.]

6. To make the filling/topping: In a large bowl, combine strawberries and 1/4 cup sugar; set aside.  Place 2 tbsp cold water in a small bowl and sprinkle with gelatin; let soften 5 minutes.  Microwave gelatin bowl in 10-15 second increments until the gelatin is dissolvevd, stirring as needed.  Let it cool.

7. Using an electric mixter, beat cream, vanilla and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a large bowl until very soft peaks form.  Add a couple of teaspoons of whipping cream to gelatin mixture to temper it.  Then gradually add the gelatin mixture as you continue to beat the whipping cream until soft peaks form.

8.  Arrange half the strawberries over bottom cake layer; top with half of whipped cream, leaving a 1" border.  Cover with top half of cake (bottom side up).  Top with remaining whipped cream, leaving a 1" border.  Refrigerate cake and remaining strawberries separately, at least 1 hour (or up to 1 day).  Just before serving, spoon strawberries over cake.

Pink Lemonade Popsicles

My little one has been asking to make popsicles for such a long time, so tonight was the night.  Off to bed we would go afterwards and they'd be ready for a delicious snack the next day.  And with the temperatures they're calling for, we are going to need a frozen treat like this to cool off.

Please do not mind my photo of the popsicles.  I couldn't find my moulds for the life of me, so we had to improvise.  What you see is a result of placing the mixture in a parchment lined loaf pan, putting in a popsicle stick through when they were pretty solid and then cutting them into 8 pieces afterwards.

Ingredients:
1 tsp freshly grated lemon zest (I always use a bit more!)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from about 4 lemons)
1/2 cup and 2 tbsp sugar
1-3/4 cup water
handful of frozen or fresh raspberries
pinch of salt

Directions:

1. In a blender or food processor, combine the lemon zest, juice and sugar.  Pour in water.  Add the raspberries and salt and blend until the mixture is smooth and pink.

2.  Pour into your popsicle moulds, dividing evenly among the moulds.  Cover and freeze until solid, at least 5 hours.    If you are using sticks, insert them into the moulds when they are partially frozen and will stand on their own, about 2 hours.  Continue to freeze them until solid.

If you're liking me and you can't find (or don't have) moulds, there are several workarounds.  As I mentioned above, you can line a loaf pan with parchment paper that overhangs on all sides and pour the mixture in.  The directions above didn't work too well for me as the mixture was still pretty liquidy 4 hours after it was placed in the freezer.  So what I did was at that time I placed the popsicle sticks in, went to bed and woke up in the morning.  Of course I couldn't pull out the block, so I cut it into 8-10 squares in the pan.  Then I was easily able to remove it from the pan and put them back in the freezer as individual pops.  If yours freezes up faster, then slice them individually  after 3-4 hours.

You can also use paper cups or individual glasses and follow the steps above for inserting the popsicle sticks.  When ready to eat, you may have to let them sit at room temperature for up to 5 minutes so they can be easily removed.

Alternate flavour: Instead of raspberries, add 2-3 strawberries (fresh or frozen) that have been hulled.

These had quite a tangy flavour, but they are really quite good and refreshing on such a hot day!

Strawberry Blueberry muffins

I know my summer vacation has officially started when I spend my day cleaning, organizing and baking.

We went strawberry picking on the weekend at Strawberry Creek Farms. Much to our surprise (and slight disappointment) they did not have a good year and the basket of strawberries that we picked was free. Part of me thought I should go back and pick some more since it was free, but the other part of me realized that there really wasn't much to pick and it took quite awhile to fill the little basket we had.

Thanks to my husband we were able to enjoy some delicious strawberry-banana shakes and I had just enough left over to make muffins this morning. The recipes I've tried in the past never really made much of an impression. I needed something better for my little one who started in a new room at daycare today (and was not very happy about it). I wanted a delicious treat waiting for us when we got home. 

I took to my trusty friend Google and found a recipe by Ina Garten I knew would be amazing (as her recipes tend to be). I didn't have enough strawberries, so I added some blueberries. These muffins turned out so amazing. They had a nice crust on the top but were so moist in the center. My husband must have polished off 4 within the first 30 minutes. My little one could have had two or three as well. They are just that delicious. I'd say we finished off half the muffins just this afternoon. 

So here is the recipe (made with real Canadian fruit!)

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1-1/2 tbsp cinnamon

1-1/4 cups milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups diced fresh berries

(I used 1-1/2 cups strawberries and 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, rinsed)

1-1/2 cups sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and soda, salt and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Stir with your hand to be sure the ingredients are well-combined.

3. In a large mixing glass (2 cup) combine the milk, eggs, vanilla and melted butter. Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, pour the wet mixture into the well, and stir until just combined. There will be some lumps, but don't overmix the batter. Add the berries and sugar and stir gently to combine (fold them in gently).

4. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins with a tablespoon.  Fill the liners.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the tops are nicely browned.

Makes 24 delicious muffins.