Cake-based Strawberry Shortcake for Father's Day

 

For the May version of strawberry shortcake we had scones, berries and whipped cream. For June I made a delicious buttermilk cake that is easy to do and produces a supple, flavorful sponge cake that is just perfect with berries and whipped cream. Sweetie really likes whipped cream, so we were generous! I know, almost anything is great with whipped cream, but I find that having cake, scones, or biscuits with it...and the berries...is wonderful. The tanginess of this cake is a nice contrast to the richness of the cream and sweetness of the berries. You can use any stone fruit or any berry if strawberry season is past. It will still be a great gift to you favorite guy...or gal. I served it in a bowl because I didn't whip the cream to firmness, but on a plate will work well, too.

This is based on a recipe that I found online...AllRecipes I think...but I changed it so much that it would be barely recognizable to the person who created the original. I'd never made a warm milk cake before. It makes a great spongy type cake but moister than the classic genoise...no need for moistening syrups. The juices from the sliced strawberries soaked into the cake nicely.

Warm Buttermilk Vanilla Cake
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla on high until thick and lemon-colored, about 4 minutes. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to egg mixture. Beat on low just until combined. Melt butter in a small saucepan until butter melts. Remove from heat and stir in the buttermilk. Add to batter; beat thoroughly (the batter will be thin). Pour into a greased 9-in. square baking pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 20-25 minutes or until cake tests done. Cool 5 minutes in the pan, then turn out on a wire rack to cool completely.

To make individual Strawberry Shortcakes with this cake, slice the cooled cake into 9 squared, then slice each half horizontally. Lay the top pieces aside. Spread sliced strawberries (hull and slice them in advance if possible so that the juice can be drawn out. Add a little sugar if they are not sweet enough) over the bottom layers. Top with the top layers of cake and frost the top with whipped cream. Garnish with a few fresh strawberries. Serve at once. If there is some left to store, store, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap, in the fridge.

Garden Update

Everything is just growing like crazy, so it seems like a good idea to show a few photos of how things are in the garden now. If you stand on the sidewalk near our front steps and face the barn, you see the scene above.

We've had our first harvest...two golden and one dark green zucchini. They weren't huge...about 6 or 7 inches long... but they were tender and delicious. Sweetie grills them with just a little pepper, garlic salt, and olive oil. The ones in the photo above should be ready in a day or two.

Everything else is far from being ready for harvest. The tomatoes are flowering but so far no fruit. The other squash are still small and working on getting female flowers. The cucumbers haven't even started to climb. The beets are looking good...larger leaves...but it will be a while until they are ready. The beans were just planted, so haven't even sprouted. The potatoes seem to like their spot and continue to push up the straw. I just hilled them up (more soil around the stems of the plants) a few days ago and the strongest ones are already peeking through the straw. Have never grown potatoes, so it's heartening to see the growth. Maybe it means I'm doing it right. That's all for the veggies. Here are some photos of the veggies, both the ones near the studio and the ones in the raised bed near the barn and the large round cloth bag with the potatoes.

In this view the closest are the two barrels with zucchini. Further away are other barrels and planters with tomatoes, more summer squash, cucumbers and some winter squash, plus geranium, roses, daisies, poppies, California poppies, marigolds with the tomatoes, and nasturtium. Mixing in the flowers seems to encourage the bees to come by...now hoping that they will fertilize the tomatoes!

Another view of the veggies, this time looking towards the studio.

The raised bed, which includes a tomato plant, beets, two kinds of squash and cucumber.

The potato cloth container...as big as a small child's wading pool! Just Joey apricot roses are lovely, too.

The best part of the garden right now is the flowers. The apricot rose (near the potato bed) is just beautiful! The Mister Lincoln rose near the studio veggie area is blooming, too, with big red roses that smell heavenly. The large shrubs of daisies are just beginning to bloom and so are the day lilies (although I don't think I have photos of that). The red poppies are still stunning and prolific, as are the CA poppies, but the nasturtium are the most prolific of all! There are a few pretty sweet peas and some lavender blooming, too. The best smelling are the flowers on the lemon shrub. The ones that come every fortnight, the fortnight lily, is blooming near the lemons. All in all a delightful time in the garden.

So that's it for now. There will be food soon...something for Father's Day

Apricot Season

I don't remember having fresh apricots when I was growing up. We just ate canned apricots. When I came to California I discovered the joy of the fresh apricot, especially the tartness factor. Canned apricots are canned in heavy syrup...or they were 50 odd years ago...and so were pretty sweet. A ripe fresh apricot has sweetness, but it also has an underlying tartness that I believe makes the fruit even more enjoyable.

We had some fresh apricots, unpeeled and uncooked, with berries and bananas for breakfast and they were delicious, but I wanted fresh apricot pie. The season for fresh apricots is pretty short and I don't think that they ship well either, so I was delighted to find them available at our Hwy. 12 farm stand. Because Sweetie really loves pies, I decided to make him an apricot pie. Many years if I make a pie or tart with apricots I combine them with a frangipane, a type of filling made with ground nuts. This time I wanted it to be all apricots! I even made a two crust pie and tried out a lattice making gadget that Sweetie had given me. (See photo below to see how it looks!)

The best way to peel an apricot is just like peeling a peach...dip them for a few minutes in boiling water and then plunge into cold water. The skins usually peel off really easily, without a knife. I did that to all the remaining apricots and, once I had slice them up and discarded the pits and peels, I had about 5 cups of fruit. I could have used another cup of fruit, but decided to go with a shallow 9-inch pie pan instead of a deep one and it all worked out fairly well.

As you know if you've been reading this blog, I often speed up the pie making time by using a pre-made pie dough for the crust. My go-to is Pillsbury ReadyCrust. The results are really delicious and you get a nice, flaky crust with not a lot of time or effort.

Depending on how juicy your apricots are, you will need a little or a lot of the flour mixture. It helps the juices turn into a filling and keeps the bottom from becoming soggy. I also like to use a pizza stone on the rack near the bottom of the oven where I plan on baking the pie. Putting the metal pie plate right on the preheated stone gives the bottom a nice push towards being fully baked and flaky.

No apricots? You can pretty much do the same thing with fresh peaches or nectarines (although I would skip peeling the nectarines) and you will still get a delicious seasonal pie. Peaches and nectarines are available for a much longer time during the summer, so you could make an apricot one now and a peach one later and a nectarine one even later. Just be sure to invite Sweetie over. He really appreciates freshly baked pies! 

Apricot Pie

Serves 6-8

pie dough for a two crusted pie (I use Pillsbury ReadyCrust from the market)

1 1/2 - 2 pounds fresh apricots
2 tablespoons sugar
2 drops almond extract
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
pinch of salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or ground nutmeg if fresh unavailable)

1 tablespoon light cream
1 tablespoon sanding sugar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a shallow 9-inch pie pan (or a deep one of you have at least 6 cups apricots when prepared), place one circle of pie dough, either dough rolled to a circle or a pre-rolled circle, and fit to the pan. let extra dough hang over the edges until pie filling has been put in. Set aside.

In a small pot heat water until boiling, with the water coming half way up the sides of the pot. Have cold water ready in a quart heat-proof measuring cup or in a narrow bowl. Once the water boils, place 4-5 apricots in the water and leave for a minute. Remove from boiling water with a slotted spoon and place right away into the cold water. Repeat with the other 3-4 apricots. Peel the apricots while still warm. Repeat with the rest of the apricots. Once all have been peeled, slice into 1-inch wedges and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle fruit with the sugar and the almond extract, then stir to combine. In a small bowl combine the flour, cornstarch, pinch of salt and the nutmeg. Stir to combine. Sprinkle flour mixture over the apricots and stir gently with you hands to coat the fruit with the flour mixture.

Place the fruit mixture in the prepared pie pan, leveling the fruit.

Prepare the second piece of dough by rolling into a circle, if needed, then create a lattice or just top with the second crust. Use your clean finger to skim light cream on the part of the dough where the upper dough and lower dough meet. Press to seal. Trim dough if desired.  Roll the dough towards the pie, rolling under, so that the upper and lower doughs all around are rolled together to sit on top of edge of pan. Crimp dough edges. Using a small pastry brush, brush dough with remaining light cream. Sprinkle with the sanding sugar. If top crust is solid and not latticed, cut four 1-inch slashes in the top of the pie, spaced out evenly around the pie...to let steam escape.

Place the pie on a lower rack in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn the temperature down to 350 degrees F and bake for another 25-35 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and juices are bubbling in the pie.

Removed from the oven to a cooling rack and cool until cool (or barely warm if you can't wait), then cut and serve.

Gingerbread and Lemon in a Bundt Cake

Many, many, many years ago there was a Pillsbury Bake Off winner who won with a cake called Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake. When you sliced the cake the center contained a fudgy filling. For a while it was all the rage.

This Gingerbread Bundt Cake is similar because there is a filling that starts with cream cheese and gets flavored with lemon zest and juice. It's a new-to-me recipe from a blog called Desserts with Stephanie. The gingerbread part is exactly what I like. It's fully flavored, moist and delicious. I did replace the cup or water with a cup of stout, so with water it might be a more subtle flavor. The filling part didn't work out so well. It was too thin and so it didn't stay in the middle but also slid down the side in a few places and made it difficult to get out of the pan. If I make it again I'll be sure to leave out the lemon juice and substitute 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract, plus add a couple of tablespoons of flour to help thicken it up. Otherwise it's lovely. 

Lemon and Gingerbread are a great combination! You don't need to glaze this cake or ice it. If you like you can sift a bit of powdered sugar over the top just before serving. I'm going to include a recipe, but it has the changes I think will help. To make it exactly like Stephanie's, go HERE.

Gingerbread and Lemon Bundt Cake
serves 10-12

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour      
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger      
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 ½ cups dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs at room temperature
• ½ cup molasses (dark but not blackstrap)
• 1 cup water (or stout beer)

Lemon Cream Cheese Filling

• 8 ounces cream cheese, full fat, at room temperature
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest (from 1 large lemon)
  
• 1 large egg at room temperature

• 2-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

 

1.                  Preheat oven to 350℉ (180℃)

Lemon Cream Cheese Filling

1.                  Place softened cream cheese in the bowl of a hand or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until no lumps remain (1 - 2 minutes).

2.                  Add granulated sugar, lemon extract and lemon zest to the mixing bowl. Mix until well combined.

3.                  Add one egg to mixing bowl. Mix until combined (1 - 2 minutes). Add all-purpose flour and mix to combine. Batter should be thick. If not add flour, a tablespoon at a time, until thicker than mayonnaise.

4.                  Set bowl aside or place cream filling in a piping bag.

Gingerbread Bundt Cake

1.                  Prepare Bundt cake pan by spraying with non-stick baking spray.

2.                  In a large bowl, whisk together flour, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set bowl aside.

3.                  In a separate large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy (1 - 3 minutes). A stand or hand mixer may be used.

4.                  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing between each addition.

5.                  Add molasses and mix until well combined.

6.                  Add flour mixture to the mixing bowl in three additions, alternating with the water or stout beer (starting and ending with the flour).

7.                  Pour one-half of the cake batter into Bundt pan. Using a spatula or spoon, create a well through center of the batter. Pipe or spoon lemon cream cheese filling into the well.

8.                  Pour rest of cake batter over the filling. Smooth top of the batter with a rubber spatula.

9.                  Place pan in preheated oven. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

10.              Remove pan from oven and place on a cooking rack for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes invert the pan onto the cooling rack and allow to cool completely (approximately 1 hour).