Most fruit and veggies come into season quietly, at a cat’s tempo. someday you look and there are asparagus. Otherwise you’re buying and understand that artichokes are lastly coming down in value. you assume, “oh, that is nice,” and choose a pair.
The exception to that is strawberries. strawberries come into season accompanied by waving flags and blaring bands.
Maybe it is as a result of strawberries are the finest fruit Southern California has to supply, with the potential exception of citrus, that we take a lot for granted that they may very well be culinary wallpaper.
nonetheless, these days, when you will discover one thing referred to as a strawberry on the market year-round, trucked in from mexico, flown in from chile. . . this time of 12 months, it is value stopping at a farmer’s market and even considered one of the strawberry stands that also dot the space and choosing the actual factor.
Chunk into considered one of these strawberries and you will be amazed. These berries are easy, candy, and tangy, a far cry from the flavorless Styrofoam that passes for strawberries most of the 12 months. (There are two issues to test for the finest berries: You must be capable to scent them if you method the stand, and they need to be the chandler selection, California King’s early-season berries.)
When you have got actually good berries like now we have now, you need to deal with them as merely as potential. the first few bins i picked up i simply sliced them, sugared them and ate them with vanilla ice cream. (Once more, a fast guidelines: at all times rinse and dry berries earlier than masking them, and until completely unattainable, do not put them in the fridge as a result of it strips fragrance.)
then, as the novelty wears off, you possibly can transfer on to extra sophisticated recipes. Proper now, I am deep into strawberry shortcake, historically the finest American strawberry dessert. In reality, I like strawberry shortcake a lot that I spent a few days testing recipe after recipe, looking for the definitive model. let me let you know, there are a number of shortcakes on the market.
To start with, let’s outline what we’re speaking about. shortcakes are not the stuff you discover for sale in most produce departments. you possibly can name them shortcakes however they’re biscuits, with an emphasis on sponge. they appear extra like a chunk of a automobile shock absorber than a cupcake. truly, i believe what some folks do is discover a closed auto components plant someplace in michigan and convert it over the summer season to make these little foam discs.
actual shortcakes are quick. in baking phrases, which means they disintegrate if you reduce them with a fork, as a substitute of being gentle and fluffy. they’re truly sweetened cookies, and most of their recipes are very related: flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, and whipped cream.
however if you strive them, you uncover that inside these 5 substances there may be a number of room for variation.
For instance, the tartlet in Janeen Sarlin’s “American Farm Meals” (Simon & Schuster: 1991) has just one/4 teaspoon of sugar per cup of flour and no butter. it is sort of a wooden biscuit, monochromatic and stark as a midwestern nonetheless life.
nancy silverton’s, in “desserts” (harper & row: 1986), is sweeter (2 1/2 teaspoons of sugar per cup of flour) and made with butter, but additionally makes use of a bit of extra powder to bake than most . he additionally bakes the desserts at a decrease temperature for longer than the others. makes a brown, crumbly cookie with a pronounced wheat taste from extended baking and a little bit of bitterness from the baking powder.
the tartlet in the 1975 version of my “pleasure of cooking” (bobbs-merrill) was someplace between that two 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar per cup of flour, however completed with milk as a substitute of cream. It was good however dare I say it, not nice.
maida heatter’s shortcake (“nice american desserts”, knopf: 1985) was one thing else completely: two tablespoons of sugar per cup of flour and completed with milk blended with an egg as a substitute of cream. it was baked in two nine-inch cake pans and served all of sudden. by no means thoughts, it was too candy and too cakey.
the shortcake that got here closest to what I had in thoughts was the one made by lindsey shere in her “desserts chez panisse” (random home: 1985). (why does every thing I bake on this e book style nearly precisely like what I take into consideration?) anyway, shere cake has the identical quantity of baking powder as silverton cake however a bit of extra sugar: a tablespoon per cup of flour. . it is a very small distinction, nevertheless it moved the bittersweet stability in the proper course.
I truly added a bit of extra sugar, and that turned out to be good for my style.
Lastly, we have to speak about whipped cream, the crowning glory of any nice sponge cake. It goes with out saying that ought to say that solely cream you’ve got whipped your self will do, however you possibly can’t be too cautious nowadays. It isn’t troublesome, actually. in actual fact, after I introduced a bunch of cupcakes and strawberries to a pal’s home for dessert, they did not have a whisk to whip the cream, so I used a fork. it was a bit of extra strenuous, nevertheless it labored out nice in the finish. bear in mind, do not beat the cream too arduous, it ought to simply have delicate mounds.
and do not sugarcoat it an excessive amount of. These aren’t your peculiar on a regular basis cookies or strawberries that you just’re masking, and also you need to have the ability to style the cream; save the sugar for the styrofoam and cushion.
the final strawberry shortcake
4 pints strawberries, rinsed and shelled
1/4 cup sugar
10 desserts
2 cups whipped cream, whipped
reduce the strawberries in half and toss with sugar. e book 1/2 hour.
divide every cake whereas nonetheless heat. Spoon plenty of strawberries over the backside of every pound cake, high with a beneficiant dollop of whipped cream, and place the high half of the pound cake on high. makes 10 servings.
every serving incorporates roughly:
380 energy; 263mg sodium; 82mg ldl cholesterol; 25 grams of fats; 36 grams of carbohydrates; 4 grams of protein; 0.70 grams of fiber.
*
It is necessary that your baking powder is lively for the recipe to work, as there isn’t a different yeast. the first few occasions we tried it in the time trial kitchen, the cookies appeared extra like cookies than cake. a change of baking powder did the trick.
cake
2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons of sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup chilly butter, reduce into 8 items
3/4 cup whipping cream
Sift flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt right into a medium bowl. Rubbing between fingers, or chopping with cross knives or a pastry cutter, combine the butter into the dry substances till the combination is the consistency of cornmeal, leaving just a few bigger clumps of butter intact. add half of the cream and blend into the dry substances with a fork. add the remainder of the cream, a bit of at a time, till a dough kinds that separates cleanly from the backside and sides of the bowl. you can not use all of the cream.
On a evenly floured workspace, knead the dough rapidly and evenly till easy and cohesive. gently roll out 1/2-inch thick. reduce cookies with a 3-inch cookie cutter or a evenly floured glass of juice. collect the extra dough, knead once more briefly and roll out once more. reduce remaining cookies.
Place cookies on unbuttered baking sheet and bake at 400 levels till golden brown and barely crisp, about 10 to fifteen minutes. take away from oven and funky barely earlier than dividing and serving. makes 10 cookies.
