I am flush with strawberries right now. It’s still relatively early in strawberry season, which generally runs from late spring through summer, but the berries I’ve picked up this week have all been sweet and full of flavor. The only problem with having so many strawberries around is that they start to go bad rather quickly, so I try to use them up by adding them to cereal, yogurt and pancakes for breakfast, making smoothies and loading them into desserts. One of my favorites is strawberry shortcake, a dessert that is always easy to put together and a great way to showcase fresh, ripe berries.
I like to think of these as fancy strawberry shortcakes. They’re cream puffs that are filled with a fluffy mascarpone cream and chopped, fresh strawberries. The choux pastry that makes the cream puffs is lightweight and soft, so these are much lighter and less filling than regular shortcakes. Each one is about 3 bites of creamy, strawberry goodness.
These cream puffs look very elegant but are relatively easy to make. The filling can be made in advance and chilled in the refrigerator. The puffs are best the same day that they are made, but are still very good the next day if they’re cooled completely and stored in an airtight container. The filling should only be added to the puffs right before serving. I like to leave the strawberries in medium-sized chunks to get a lot of flavor, but this also means that I usually have to cut open the cream puffs and add the filling with a knife or a spoon. If you want to pipe it into the puffs and don’t want berries stuck in a pastry bag, chop them up finely.
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I always use unsalted butter for baking because it offers a consistent baseline for a recipe. But I really prefer salted butter for basic uses, like topping toast, pancakes or a baked potato because the extra bit of salt adds a little contrast to the slightly sweet cream taste of plain butter. The one thing that can top a good salted butter is butter with sea salt crystals in it. This type of butter – which seemed to be easily available in Paris, at markets and supermarkets – offers the taste of sweet cream, a bit of savory salt and a little bit of crunch from the crystals mixed into the butter.
I didn’t think any packages would survive my plane trip home, but it’s easy to make the same thing at home. Just soften butter, then mix in some coarse sea salt. I love Maldon Sea Salt, as the unusual flake shape of the salt crystals adds just the right kind of crunch. Use any kind of sea salt or kosher salt you’d like, but I wouldn’t choose one with huge, hard crystals that might add more “crack” than “crunch” to a bite of bread. As with regular salted butter, the salt content seems to vary from brand to brand. Coarse salt has a more noticeable saltiness, so add just a little when you start to mix up your batch, and add more to taste. Serve your butter at room temperature, or store it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
Alternatively, you can just sprinkle a little bit of salt on top of plain butter. It’s my favorite trick in the morning and never fails to take a piece of toast (or a regular dinner roll, for that matter) from good to great, even if I’m just eating a quick breakfast out.
It seems like there are several boulangeries, or bakeries, on every block in Paris selling baguettes and other types of breads. Sandwich shops and some cafes, many of which look just like bakeries themselves, also sell baguettes and baguette sandwiches. So how can you pick a good one? In part, it’s a crap shoot because there are just so many out there, but there are a few things to look out for to help you pick one that will be good – and, if you’re lucky, one that will be great.
When you’re walking down the street, look for boulangeries that say “Artisan Boulanger” or “Artisan Boulangerie” in the window. This generally means that the bread is baked on-site, not imported from some other shop or factory. You can usually see the ovens through an open back room in places like these.
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When I first saw the Giant Sandwich Cookie Cake Pan, it put me in the mood for sandwich cookies. Whoopie pies are a good choice, but nothing really beats some Oreos (or similar cookies) and a glass of milk for sandwich cookie satisfaction. That being said, it’s also easy to get a little tired of eating them in the same way all the time, so I took all the leftovers from a new box of cookies (after I was done munching on a few) and baked them into a cake.
I opted for a pound cake, as the dense but tender texture of a pound cake is great for suspending mix-ins in without them sinking to the bottom. You can use any Oreo-type sandwich cookie for this recipe, whether you want to go with actual Oreos, Hydrox or some other brand is up to you. I used some Joe’s O’s from Trader Joe’s, which have a vanilla bean filling that has a little more flavor than the classic Oreo filling. Be sure to grease and flour the pan before baking, as the cookie filling has a tendency to want to stick to the inside of a bundt pan and can be very difficult to detach without cracking part of the cake.
The cake has a tender crumb and the density that you’d expect from pound cake, so it is easy to slice even with big chunks of cookie inside. It has a nice vanilla and butter flavor to it. I’d recommend cutting the oreos in halves or thirds when you go to mix them in, because the bigger pieces have a more noticeable chocolate flavor, while the smaller bits just add to the overall look of the cake.
If you want to dress the cake up with a glaze, I’d recommend using this easy Satiny Chocolate Glaze. It’s rich and makes just enough to drizzle over the bundt cake. The glaze is also a good way to cover up a crack in the top of the cake if it happens to stick in your bundt pan. Otherwise, just serve the cake plain and let the beautiful oreo cookie pattern in each slice speak for itself.
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