Day Twenty-Two: My Just Desserts

When I was a kid, just learning to experiment on my own in the kitchen, I discovered a shortcake recipe on the back of a Bisquick box. I made shortcake at least twice a week for a month... until I moved on to an obsession with pan frying the perfect hamburger.

I remember that shortcake fondly. While yes, I WAS using a boxed baking mix to do most of the heavy lifting for me, I spent hours playing around with add-in's like extra butter, a little vanilla, orange juice, and once, even a splash of grenadine syrup. (This resulted in a shockingly PINK shortcake, worthy of Strawberry Shortcake herself.)

I can tell you right now that if I had been in possession of an Easy Bake Oven back then, Death by Shortcake would not have been outside of the realm of possibility.

Tonight, I THINK I made a shortcake worthy of my childhood memories.

The Recipe, inspired by this recipe from Food for a Hungry Soul.
1/2 C of heavy cream, whipped (reserve a tablespoon or so for garnish)
3/4 C of all purpose flour
1 T Sugar
3 Small - Medium Strawberries
1 big pinch of Baking Powder
1/4 cap full of vanilla
2 fresh orange mint leaves

I whipped the cream, and folded the flour into it a little at a time. I started with 1/2 cup of flour, then added the other ingredients, then slowly worked in more flour to make the dough form together into a sort of biscuit like shape. Then, I brushed the top with the dribbles of cream left in the container, and sprinkled a little sugar on top.



The biscuit cooked for 55 minutes. You'll notice that it looks like the top was scraped off. That's, um, because it was. I honestly didn't expect it to rise as much as it did.



But you know what? Flip it over and it's all pretty again!



The strawberries were just sliced and thrown into the pan. I didn't add any sugar or anything to them.



NOTE: Roasted Strawberries are the bomb!

They roasted for about 55 minutes, as well. They held their shape well, and gave off just enough juice to soak into the shortcake.



I mixed just a little bit of Splenda, maybe half a packet at most, into the tablespoon or so of whipped cream I had left, and, after dumping the strawberries on top, plopped a dollop of cream on top. The mint leaves were kind of an afterthought, but lookit how pretty!



This really did turn out to be a pretty classic strawberry shortcake. The cake itself was sweet, kind of crumbly on the outside, and just a little denser in the middle. It soaked up the strawberry juices well, too.

This is the first time I've seen a cake that I made in the EBO actually brown on the bottom. I'm thinking a longer cooking time on future cakes is the key.

Okee doke, I'mma go finish my dessert. G'night everyone!