Strawberry Shortcake - SCB

Here is another recipe from Southern Living’s new book The Southern Cake Book -2014

Strawberry Shortcake 
 Click HERE for recipe

Now Strawberry Shortcake is one of my favorite desserts. I love the traditional style where the cake is more of a biscuits and less of an angel food cake. Think of a fat, fluffy scone smothered in strawberries and whipped cream and you will get a hint of what I’m after. And while the shortcake version in The Southern Cake Book wasn’t exactly my ideal (a little too flat), I decided to expand my horizons and give it a try.

Well the end product turn out kind of pretty, but I wasn’t overly impressed with the taste.  The cake/biscuit part didn’t wow me. It was a little bland and nondescript. In the end I scraped off the strawberries and cream, threw the cake away, and stirred the salvaged strawberry into some vanilla ice cream.

So sad.  Where did I go wrong???? ;-(

The dough came together easy enough, but it was very wet and very sticky...

But the directions in the book warned of this and suggested using damp fingers to push and spread the dough around.  And it actually worked. I manged to fill all the gaps.

The only thing that I had trouble with was spreading the beaten egg whites over the top of the cake.  The directions says to beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Well I guess I beat them too long because try as I might I couldn't get those egg whites to spread evenly.  Looks a little lumpy, ah?

Here is the cake right out of the oven.  Notice the scorching of the egg white?   Oven possibly too hot for egg whites?  Hummm...  There was one difference between the online version of the recipe and the recipe in the book.  The book says to bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes, but the online recipes says to bake at 300 degrees for 40 minutes.  I wonder which one is right?

I usually tastes cakes after I take them out of the oven, but I forgot in this case.  Stupid me because if I had tasted it first I wouldn't have wasted the strawberries and whipped cream.  Here is the cake being assembled...

And here is the finished cake.  Looks good, but in my opinion it just didn't have a great taste.  I probably did something wrong (I usually do), but with this cake I'm not even tempted to try it again. 

DB: Orange (Strawberry) Tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.


To me The Daring Bakers' Challenges are always a struggle not so much in the technical aspect (I love learning new things), but in the flavor arena. I'm a wuss when it comes to trying new foods, and I have some very strange likes and dislikes. Citrus is one of the things I'm not overly fond of. Orange juice hurts my stomach, and the white pithy stuff that surrounds the orange segments is very unappetizing to me. I know, I know, I'm weird.

So this month's Orange Tian posed a dilemma. To Orange or not To Orange? I chose Not to Orange. I swapped out the Orange Marmalade for Strawberry Marmalade and used strawberry slices as my topping instead of orange.

The recipe I used for Strawberry Marmalade did include tangerines, so I saved some of the tangerine segments and made one token "Orange" Tian.


Below are the many steps that went into making the Tian.

The Pate Sablee were quick and easy to whip up.



Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings suggested a baking time of 20 minutes, but my Sablees were toasty brown after just 13 minutes.


Next came the Strawberry Marmalade which was made from strawberries, tangerines, sugar, vanilla, strawberry extract and cinnamon. The marmalade took a long time to cook (about 30 minutes), and at first taste was a little bitter. I added more sugar, more vanilla and a little bit of mint. It tasted better after the adjustments.



The whipped cream was a snap to whip up.



Then the assembly. I lined the pan with parchment paper and arranged the fruit. I made one orange and the rest strawberry.


Added a layer of whipped cream.


And topped with a Pate Sablee that had been slathered in marmalade.



I froze the pans for 3 hours and then popped the frozen concoction out with just a twist of the pan.

Everyone who sampled the Tian said they were superb. And what really made my day was that the people who sampled both the Orange and Strawberry Tian said the strawberry was better. Thanks Jennifer from Chocolate Shavings, I really enjoyed your challenge.

Strawberry Pie

I never realized how many strawberries are in a “flat”. I bought a flat a few days ago, and after making strawberry cupcakes, strawberry cookies, and strawberry shortcake I still had 6 of the 12 pints remaining. So what is a girl to do??

What else, Make Strawberry Pie…

Here is the cooking…

The pouring…

The final product…

Don’t you just love strawberries!

Strawberry Shortcake

I bought a flat of strawberries from a local vendor and decided to make this a Strawberry Memorial Day Weekend.

My favorite strawberry dessert is Strawberry Shortcake (with sweet biscuits not sponge cake), and my favorite recipe is Strawberry Shortcake a la Treebeard’s. I think it is the brown sugar in the mix that makes it so special tasting.



If you like a lots of strawberry filling on your shortcake, double the volume of filling called for in the Treebeard’s recipe or cut the shortcake recipe in half. Also, taste the filling before adding the entire 1/3 cup of sugar. The added sugar needs to be adjusted depending on the natural sweetness of the berries.

Enjoy your Memorial Day…

Strawberry Filled Cupcakes

My second adventure on Strawberry Memorial Day Weekend was Strawberry Filled Cupcakes.

Pretty…


The cupcake "cake" is my third attempt at duplicating the famous White Almond Wedding Cake from Swiss Confectionery in New Orleans. Cake version #3 was good, but still not Swiss (too dense). I’ll try again some other day, but the real purpose of the cupcake was to try different “filling” methods.

The Cone Method – I used a knife and cup a cone shape out of the top of the cupcake and then cut the “cone” off of the cupcake plug leaving only a cap.



Next I just spooned the strawberry jam into the cavity and covered with the cupcake cap.


I frosted using a standard buttercream recipe, then cut the cupcake in half to see the guts. Here is what the inside looks like using the Cone Method.



The next method I tried was the “Piping Method”. I made two perpendicular cuts in the top of the cupcake using a regular paring knife, and then squeezed the strawberry jam into the opening using Wilton Star Tip 21.


Don’t pipe too much or it will overflow.


Here is the inside of the “Piped” filling method. The piped method was quicker but I think I like the neat look of the “Cone” filling method. I guess it is just a matter of preference because they both tasted the same.



Here is the finished cupcake again. Don’t you just love the sparkly fruit? The recipe called for sanding sugar but I just had regular granulated sugar on hand. The sanding sugar would have look much more sparkly, but you have to work with what ya got. I also forgot to “sugar” the mint leaves. I’m such a scatterbrain sometime.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

I don’t know if you are supposed to publish your failures (or non-tasty results) on a blog, but disappointment is a big part of baking so here goes…. I found a Martha Stewart recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cookies that looked good and sounded delicious.



Here is the strawberry shortcake cookie dough all mixed up. Looking good at this point.



Here they are about to go into the oven. The recipe said to use parchment paper, but I used a silicon baking mat instead. The recipe also said to sprinkle sugar on top of the cookies. I should have known better. From my many scone baking adventures I have found that any sugar that lands on the pan instead of the cookies will burn to a crisp.



Just out of the oven at this point. The still look good. The edges are turning brown and the centers are still pale and soft looking. Yummm…



I thought I had a winner at this point. But then I turned a cookie over and noticed the bottoms. YUCK…. Granted I do have a hot spot in my oven and I have to rotate the tray once or twice, but even with that a few of the cookies ended up a little too toasty. Also notice the areas of the cookies where the sugared strawberries came in direct contact with the pan. Cinders!!



Here are the best of the bunch. The finished cookie looked nice, but unfortunately the taste was downright bland and definitely not worth the calories. If they had tasted better I might have experimented with protecting the bottom, but they were not worth a second try.