It’s the strawberry season! No imported berry can evaluate the beauty, fragrance, and flavor of our homegrown BC strawberries. At first pick in early June, I am content material to devour my fill of strawberries, handful by way of a delicious handful, no embellishment essential. But as our lengthy and adorable strawberry season carries on via the summer, I begin to get creative. Yes, I make jam, and yes, I freeze berries, however specifically, I love to concoct dreamy strawberry desserts. Super fruity or wealthy and creamy, crumbly or soft, warm or frozen: if you could consider a dessert, I have probably tried it with strawberries.
Delicious cooked or clean, with a complicated sweet-tart flavor and a stunning color, strawberries live as much as the perception of the “perfect berry.” Summer berry cakes are constantly a hit: a pride to make and a pleasure to eat. I’ve collected some of my favorite recipes right here: a zingy, lime-scented strawberry popsicle, a creamy cheesecake parfait with crispy almond crumbles honeyed berries; a great Pavlova with Meyer lemon cream and fresh strawberries; and a favorite unfashionable cake. Enjoy the strawberry season, and might you be blessed with an overload of strawberries, warm from the sunny field.
STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE PARFAIT WITH ALMOND SHORTBREAD CRUMBLE
Serves eight to twelve. One of my favorite desserts, this can be a situation to countless versions. Change the strawberries for a kind fruit, use exclusive nuts within the shortbread, disintegrate, and change the filling’s flavoring. All additives (cheese, fruit, crumble) can be made in advance of time and stored separately until geared up to bring together the parfaits.
Almond shortbread crumble
- one zero five g (¾ cup) all reason flour
- 35 g (¼ cup) complete wheat flour
- 76 g (1/3 cup) butter
- 76 g (1/three cup) sugar
- 1 g (1/8 tsp) salt
- a hundred and ten g (1 cup) slivered almonds
- Cheese filling
- 454 g (2 blocks) block-style cream cheese
- 2 hundred g (1 cup) sugar
- 10 ml (2 tsp) vanilla
- 300 ml (1-1/four cup) whipping cream
- Fruit topping
- 4 cups fresh strawberries
- one hundred fifty g (¾ cup) sugar
- 15 to 30 ml (1 to two Tbsp) mild nearby honey
Crumble:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine all elements. Mix with your
palms until the mixture resembles satisfactory crumbs, with bigger portions of almond. Gently press the aggregate onto the baking sheet into a huge, kind of shaped cookie, approximately ½ cm thick. Don’t try to make it perfectly fashioned or maintain together — it is going to be damaged up into bits after it’s miles cooked. The fundamental factor is to get the thickness greater or less even. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until mild golden brown and fragrant. Cool on a rack. Once the “cookie” is cool, ruin it into pieces and buzz it through a food processor until it resembles coarse crumbs (rather, positioned the portions in a large zipper-lock bag and roll with a rolling pin).
Cheese filling:
Cream collectively the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until easy. In a separate bowl, whip the whipping cream until peaks shape. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture, preserving it as mild and ethereal as feasible. Place within the fridge to set whilst you make the topping.
Fruit topping:
Wash and put together the berries. Set aside 2 cups of the strawberries for later. Slice the ultimate 2 cups of strawberries and area in a medium pot. Add about a ¼ cup of water. Bring to a boil, lessen warmness and simmer for a few minutes until berries start to interrupt and supply off their juice. Use a fork or potato masher to mash the berries lightly, and simmer for a few minutes. Add the sugar and honey and produce it to a boil again. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring and mashing the fruit until the aggregate looks darker and smooth, with the consistency of runny jam, approximately five to ten mins. Pour right into a bowl and allow cool for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, slice the reserved clean strawberries. Mix these into the cooked and cooled strawberries. Refrigerate till equipped to assemble.
Assembly:
In small glass jars, layer the components like so: one spoonful of crumble inside the backside of the jar, observed by using a dollop of the cream cheese combination, a spoonful of the strawberry aggregate (along with some of its juice). Follow this with extra cream cheese, after which more strawberries. Top with a big spoonful of disintegrating and serve. (I positioned the crumble on the very bottom and very pinnacle simplest — now not the center — so that it doesn’t get soggy. Change this if you prefer).
STRAWBERRY POKE CAKE
A poke cake is an unfashionable again-of-the-container recipe, with an ingenious twist — after the cake has cooled, holes are poked in it and filled with fruit jello. I love the perfect texture and high-quality fruity flavor of this cake; however, I pick my personal homemade strawberry gelatin to the packaged stuff. This cake can easily be doubled and cooked in a nine×thirteen-inch pan.
