06 April 2009

It's Not Nice to Call Your Cakes Short

When I was growing up, I had a Strawberry Shortcake doll house. I can still picture it's bright red strawberry roof that my sister and I used to ride like a horse because of its saddle-like shape. This house was definitely cooler than a Barbie house. Barbies couldn't even fit inside, though I had my fair share of them. I also had a Strawberry Shortcake blanket that I think my aunt made. The thing is, I can never remember having a Strawberry Shortcake doll, so I don't know how I played with the doll house. I only remember how cool it was.

I have always loved strawberry shortcake. I can think of no better summertime dessert. Since the temperature reached almost 70 degrees in Qingdao today (eat that Duluth and Buffalo!), it was a perfect holiday (Qing Ming, a.k.a. Respect the Dead Day) for a berry-licious dessert.

We had two pints of strawberries that someone brought as a gift for the party that were slowly rotting out on our cooking porch (two bags of lychee fruits had to go in the trash due to mold) and leftover heavy cream from the party puddings. I salvaged more than enough strawberries for a few servings of dessert and made buttermilk biscuits late this afternoon.

My January issue of Gourmet had a tip for making biscuits ala Francais that involved folding into a rectangle of dough thin slices of frozen butter to give them extra lift in the oven and extra flakiness once cooked. Well, my dough turned out too wet (thanks to a lack of measuring cups), but I did the butter trick anyway. I think it would work beautifully with correctly proportioned ingredients.

After dinner, Turner whipped up some cream with sugar and vanilla and we dug into our shortcake like it was the last day of summer. Thankfully it is merely the beginning of a season that should offer plenty more strawberry goodness.

3 comments:

  1. Must be nice to have 70 degrees! We have a winter storm warning tonight for 4-6 inches of snow! Last time I checked it wasn't suppose to snow in April, even if it is Buffalo!

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  2. FYI I have just discovered the posting comments section! I have been reading all the time, but you know I am not technologically savy!

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  3. you did have a strawberry shortcake doll which smelled like strawberries- it was a miniature. you also had her friends that smelled- blueberry muffin, lemon chiffon and raspberry rachael- mom

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