Archive for the ‘Featured Holiday’ Category
I like to think of this Peach and Strawberry Cobbler as my end-of-summer cobbler. This particular batch of cobbler was baked with beautiful fresh strawberries and a mix of perfectly ripe yellow and white peaches. The strawberries are probably some of the last top-notch berries I’ll get this season – hence the end-of-summer feeling to the dessert. It also helps that the colors in the cobbler remind me of the sunset, with the yellow and orange tones of the peaches and the more vivid red of the strawberries.
The cobbler has a lightly sweet, buttery topping above a mix of sweet and very tender fruits. I didn’t add too many extra spices or too much sugar, as I really wanted the peaches and strawberries to be the stars of this dessert and they give plenty of flavor on their own. The topping for this cobbler is a lot like a scone dough, where butter is cut into a flour and sugar mixture and then stirred together with some milk to bind it. Before the milk is added, I set aside a small amount of the flour mixture and tossed it in with the peaches and strawberries. This added a little extra sweetness and just enough flour to help thicken the juices of the fruit as the filling cooked.
I used fresh peaches and fresh strawberries for this cobbler, and I will almost always use fresh berries in a cobbler when I have them available. That said, you can definitely use frozen fruit in this recipe and get excellent results. Frozen sliced peaches can be used without defrosting, as can frozen strawberries. If possible, however, chop any very large strawberries into smaller pieces. You can also mix things up by using frozen raspberries or blackberries alongside the peaches, and nectarines can make a great substitution for the peaches, as well.
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I’m definitely awash in strawberries this summer – but I’m not going to complain about that any time soon. I love eating strawberries when they’re at their peak, and I also love the opportunity to incorporate them into all kinds of different recipes. With more strawberries than I knew what to do with in my kitchen then other day, I decided to give a Homemade Strawberry Julius a try.
Orange Julius is a light, frothy orange drink that tastes a lot like a creamsicle – only better. They were a favorite of mine as a kid, when I used to come across Orange Julius store locations all over the place. These days, I don’t see them as often, but I’ve been making Homemade Orange Julius‘s at home for a while now, using freshly squeezed orange juice. A Strawberry Julius is the same concept, only the drink uses fresh strawberries instead of orange juice.
The recipe is very simple: strawberries, water, sugar, egg white, vanilla and ice. It sounds like it might be watery based on the ingredient list, but it is very flavorful and very refreshing, with a great creamy/fluffy consistency. The egg white is really the key to the drink, so don’t leave it out. Use pasteurized egg whites (this is what I use) or even a pasteurized egg white product (the whites-only variety, not anything yellow) in this recipe to substitute for the egg white when you’re mixing it up. It has a fantastic berry flavor and is one of my favorite summertime drinks.
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Shortcakes are typically made with a buttery biscuit or scone that is laden with fruit , ice cream, whipped cream or other fillings to create a fun summertime dessert that really showcases the best and ripest fruit of the season. Strawberry shortcakes are the most classic iteration of a shortcake, but there are all kinds of different variations out there to try. You can dress up strawberry shortcakes using different flavors of biscuit or cream filling, and you can change the flavor of a shortcake completely by using different fruits! You really can’t go wrong with a shortcake, but here are a few great ideas to get you started.
- Blackberry shortcakes are definitely a departure from most traditional shortcakes. These Blackberry Shortcakes with Yogurt Whipped Cream have a dramatic look thanks to the deep purple berries inside, and they have a lighter feel to them because the whipped cream inside is cut with greek-style yogurt (I use low fat or nonfat), making them much lower in fat.
- Tropical Guava Strawberry Shortcakes are a twist on classic strawberry shortcake. The strawberry filling is spiked with some guava jelly, which makes it sweeter and even more fragrant. The shortcakes have shredded coconut in them, too! It’s almost like taking a little vacation in your own back yard.
- Olive Oil Strawberry Shortcake is a bit different from these other shortcakes because it uses a moist layer cake instead of a biscuit for the base. The olive oil cake is tender and fruity, and is a wonderful background for any fruit. The advantage to making a layered strawberry shortcake is that you get points for drama, as well as flavor, when serving it to friends and family!
- Shortcakes don’t have to be limited to berries, either. Grilled Peach Shortcakes with Candied Ginger are made with ripe peaches that are grilled for just a few minutes until they are incredibly tender and sweet before being piled onto a shortcake. The shortcakes themselves have bits of candied ginger in them that go nicely with the sweet peaches. Many other fruits can be grilled, and just about all of them can be stuffed into a shortcake.
- Finally, a simple Buttermilk Strawberry Shortcake is always worth making. It is a classic and undeniably a good way to eat fresh summer strawberries. If you only make one shortcake recipe, it should probably be this. And even if you try every variation out there, this is the type of recipe that you’ll always come back to.
For fans of blueberries, raspberries and other summer berries, it is hard to resist putting them into anything and everything you bake when they’re in season. So why try? Berries make a great addition to a cake, adding sweetness and a splash of color to anything you include them in. I incorporated lots of fresh blueberries and raspberries into this Red, White and Blue Berry Yogurt Cake. The berries add a lot of flavor to just about every bite of this vanilla cake and they also make for a beautiful presentation.
The cake is a moist, tender cake that is a cross between a coffee cake and a pound cake in texture. It has a tight, but tender, crumb and is made with plain yogurt that makes it very moist. I use thick, greek-style yogurt for this recipe, but if you don’t have that, you can thicken some plain yogurt by straining it through a cheesecloth for an hour before use to remove excess liquid or you can use sour cream. A nonfat or lowfat yogurt will work, but you’ll get a slightly richer result if you use full-fat yogurt.
I used fresh berries in this cake because they’re in season and they’re less likely to “bleed” than frozen berries. The trick to getting the berries to remain suspended in the batter is twofold: toss about 1 tsp of extra flour over the berries before folding them in and only fold them into half of the batter, pouring the half of the batter without berries into the pan first. You can use frozen berries for the cake (use them frozen and toss them in 2 tsp flour to minimize “bleeding”), but you’ll still need fresh berries to garnish the top. The icing here is a very simple cream cheese icing that adds a nice sweetness to the cake and gives it a really clean look – and makes sure those fresh berries topping the cake really stick in place!
It is easy to add a splash of food coloring to a batch of cake or cookies to get a red, white and blue effect for a holiday, and that does deliver a beautifully colored result. That said, it is nice to know that you can get a festive cake for the 4th of July (or another patriotic holiday) without needing to add any food coloring. This cake fits the bill perfectly, as the combination of white cake with white frosting really make the red and blue berries pop out and make the cake look very festive. Of course, you can make this cake any day of the year, but it’s nice to have this type of cake in the back of your mind when you’re looking for a festive, but easy to make, cake for a picnic, barbecue or other summer celebration.
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There are plenty of ways to enjoy fresh summer strawberries. You can stuff them into a shortcake or pile them up into a pie, as well as add them to cereal and toss them into a salad. Shortcakes are probably my favorite strawberry dessert, but I’ve recently added a new recipe to my list of strawberry dessert options: a strawberry souffle.
This light, fluffy Strawberry Souffle is made with just a few ingredients – and fresh strawberries make up the bulk of it. Whole berries are pureed with some sugar, cornstarch and a very small amount of lemon or lime juice (which just brightens up the berries a tiny bit). Egg whites are beaten to stiff peaks with a little bit of sugar and are then folded into the puree. Everything is divided up into ramekins and baked. The souffle has a beautiful pink color (the darker your berries, the darker the souffle), a not-too-sweet strawberry flavor and an airy texture that reminds me of Strawberry Chiffon Cake. As an added bonus, this dessert is so light that it is fat free, so you’ll never feel guilty about ending a meal with it.
The souffle will rise up quite high in the oven and, like most souffles, will sink down as it cools. That said, it is pretty structurally sound for a souffle and will retain its shape very well for quite a while, even after it has cooled. This means that you can serve the souffles hot or warm, and you don’t need to feel any pressure about getting the dessert to the table the instant it comes out of the oven.
This recipe is best made with fresh strawberries, although if you defrost and drain frozen berries before using them, they will work in the recipe. I have to admit, though, that I put this solidly in the summertime dessert category and make it only when I have good, fresh strawberries available. I serve this plain or with a little bit of whipped cream. One way to make it a little more decadent – and to add a fancy finish to impress dinner guests with – is to drizzle it with melted chocolate or fudge sauce before serving, too.
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