My Favorite Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake is one of the delectable delights of strawberry season. There are a few different versions on the same general theme, the biggest difference in the varieties seems to be in the style of cake that comes with it. I will label the two main varieties as the "sponge-cake variety", and the "short-bread variety". I prefer the short-bread variety, and this is my favorite recipe.

Ingredients:
2 cups white flour
1 T. b.powder
3/4 t salt
3 T. sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
About 1/3 cup milk
4 cups strawberries, sliced, cut in half, or crushed mixed with a little sugar
enough butter to spread on the cake generously
heavy cream

Heat oven to 450*. Mix dry ingredients, and cut in butter with 2 knives or a pastry blender until it resembles corn meal.

The butter cut in

Next add the egg, then add enough milk to make an easily handled dough.

Complete Dough

Next pat the dough into a 1/2" round. Alternately, you can make a rectangle and cut out individual rounds or squares.

Dough rolled 1/2"

Baked pastry

The next step is to split the cake while hot and butter it generously. You can do this in one piece, or in smaller slices, it's up to you. Sprinkle with sugar and fill with berries.

Yum

Whip up some cream... Mmm I love whipped cream.

The complete cake

For serving, top the shortcake with berries and whipped cream, or pass plain cream. My Mom and Gram used to eat this with milk, so there's a few ways to do it. This recipe makes 6 servings.
Enjoy!

It's easy to make kids happy...Cone Cupcakes

Kid-tastic Cone Cupcakes

Here it is... Voilà! or is it Eureka? Either way, this is the perfect Kid Party Cupcake!!!

Isn't it frightful? My son's kindergarten class loved them!!

One box of cake mix made enough for the whole class. The method is easy. Fill the cupcake cones about 1/2-2/3 full. I used that vanilla cake-mix with the colored bits in it, usually well-received by the kids AND those garishly colored ice-cream cones to add to the effect. These cupcakes cook quickly, only about 20 minutes. The biggest trick for me to figure out was how on earth to bake them so they don't fall over? Well, I used a glass lasagna pan and carefully placed them in that. It worked fine, none of them tipped over. I cooled them on a wire rack as normal.

For the maximum kid-love I used half-chocolate, half-vanilla frosting, dabbed on the little sprinkles that came with the frosting, and draped on a gummy-worm for a truly kid-tastic effect.

They're horribly delicious

Talk about sugar-bombs, but they certainly are colorful!

Enjoy!...well, at least your kids will.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hershey's Chocolate Town Cookies "They're Different!"

This is the recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies in the Universe, Multiverse, or any Verse you can come up with. I don't like soggy, cakey chocolate chip cookies, and these cookies are the the cure for that. Delicate and crisp, mmm pure chocolate chip cookie delight. This old bit of paper has been the recipe that my Mom and my Gram have used for my whole life- I know you can't tell by it's wonderful, pristine state of preservation. Anyway, I'm not sure how old this recipe is, and I'm not telling you how old I am, so...go make some cookies. They're good, but use butter. Shortening is nothing but a blob of goo assaulting your recipe with it's fatty taste!-lessness!!!



Hershey's Chocolate Town Cookies

Cream...1/2 cup shortening (Butter, butter, butter!!!!)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla, ...until light and fluffy

Fold.......1 egg well beaten and beat entire mixture

Sift.........1 cup and 2 level tablespoons sifted flour, 1/2 teaspoon soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt

Add........Sifted dry ingredients to creamed mixture and stir in 1/2 cup chopped nuts, 1 package Hershey's Semi-Sweet Dainties and mix thoroughly.

Drop.......By small spoonfuls on greased baking sheet.

Bake.......In moderate oven 375* F, about 10 minutes.

Yield.......50 cookies.

Orange and Cardamom Rice Pudding

I made rice pudding last night. There's something very relaxing and homey about rice pudding. Comfort food, if you will, though I know that term gets bandied around quite a bit. But back to the pudding, I was asked by the church I've been attending to donate a dinner for two, so I wanted to make something that would please a large palate spectrum, and something that would be cheerful and comforting.

I started making a plain vanilla rice pudding, and it smelled very nice, but I thought it could use a bit of spicing up, a bit of Christmas-y flavoring. So I ground fine in my mortar two pods of cardamom and added that to the simmering milk and arborio rice, and zested an orange and added that with the sugar. The result...a very delicious rice pudding with hints of orange and cardamom that I hope you enjoy.

2/3 c. arborio rice
5 c. milk
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out or 1/2 t. vanilla extract
2 cardamom pods, seeds ground fine
pinch of salt
1/2 c. sugar
1 orange, zested

Bring the milk and rice to a boil, then lower the heat, add the cardamom, salt and vanilla bean, if you're using it and simmer until the rice is soft. This takes about 30 minutes, and please give a stir often. Then add the sugar and orange zest and vanilla extract if you're using it, and simmer another 10 minutes until thick. Yay! It's done...well, almost.

If you want a richer, thicker pudding, you can add a beaten egg or two. Laison the egg, by adding a bit of the hot milk to the eggs whilst stirring, and then adding it all back into the pudding. This will keep the eggs from curdling. A good time to do this would be at the same time you add the sugar and zest.

Now take that orange that you zested, and make supremes (segmented oranges that have all the peel and pith removed) for a lovely garni and there you have it. Isn't this stuff terrific? So simple. Old technique as well, to make a dessert that doesn't need to be baked, back before household ovens were commonplace. Puddings are sort of old fashioned in that way, but I think that's part of their charm.

Pecan Pie - with NO corn syrup!

Well, it's just about that Thankful time of year, and people are making plans, gathering their old favorite recipes and planning the big meal ahead. There's plenty of really well-qualified people out there who can tell how to perfect a turkey, and make stuffing, but what I want to talk about is Pecan Pie. Pecan Pie that has pre-toasted, crushed pecans for the maximum ratio of nut-flavor per bite of pie. More importantly, Pecan Pie that is absolutely corn-syrup free.

***This is actually a picture of THE PIE that I made for Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy it as much as we all did!***


Pecan Pie Extraordinaire- sans corn syrup!


1.5 c pecans -toasted and chopped
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup water
1 lb. dark brown sugar -Use real cane sugar and weigh it. Not all sugar is created equal. (~2 cups by volume)
1/4 cup butter
pinch of salt
pastry for 1 bottom pie crust


Prick the bottom of your pie crust with a fork all over and bake for about 10 minutes, or until lightly golden in a 400* oven. Remove pie crust, and lower the oven to 275*.
Combine the sugar and the water and stir until sugar dissolves over low medium heat. Bring to a full boil for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat source and let it cool off a bit while you proceed. Add the butter to the sugar and let it melt in and continue to cool. Toast pecans in a dry skillet on medium heat, stirring fairly often to prevent burning. Alternately, you can toast them in the oven. Let the nuts cool and chop up. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until frothy and slowly whisk the hot butter syrup into the beaten eggs. Add vanilla extract, salt, and chopped pecans into the mixture. Pour into your previously made golden pie crust and let bake for 1 hour.

**Note, if you can only find light brown sugar, which I know happens to the best of us, add 1 T. of molasses or even Grade B maple syrup and that will give it a bit more flavor.

Enjoy!!!

Nutella

Ah, nutella. Elevating the humble hazelnut into a thing of beauty. Transforming boring lunchbox sandwiches into a serious bartering tool and popularity booster. Giving chocoholics everywhere yet another reason to nip o' wee bitty. Makes a pretty darn good dessert sauce too...which is what I'm going to talk to you about.

The other day I was given a pound cake as a gift. Fairly random, but always welcome. I was telling my Mother about it, who instantly told me to try a nutella chocolate sauce for the topping, because she really liked it and Oh by the way, can you have it ready for dessert at 7 with some Earl Grey? Ah, yes ma'am!

Nutella will seize up like other chocolate if you melt it first and then try to add milk or cream to it. The trick is to put the nutella and cream or milk together first and then heat it up, which you can do in the microwave by zapping it for 15-20 seconds at a time and then stirring. This is how you can easily melt chocolate chips as well, especially if your recipe calls for the chocolate to be combined with butter or cream.

Giada de Laurentiis in her book "Everyday Italian" recommends this ratio for nutella sauce: 1/3 c. nutella and 3 T. cream microwaved until melted for about 1 minute, stopping and stirring every 20 seconds. A fine sauce, a fine sauce indeed.

OK, for those of you who meticulously read labels like me and will not eat high fructose corn syrup in any shape or form, or other nasties, nutella stands up pretty well- considering it is a sweet chocolate concoction. It uses sugar, so bonus points for no artificial sweeteners, modified palm oil, so no trans fats- though I want to find out exactly what the "modified" means, cocoa, so no added chocolate fat, and skim milk which completes the nut protein and makes me happier when my little bunchkins want some "atella". Reduced minerals whey- pretty much what it says, produced by drying whey with some of the minerals physically separated out, according to ADPI- the American Dairy Products Institute by "precipitation, filtration, or dialysis" It has a whey, hence, dairy flavor, but I'll bet it's used because of cost factors, IE: it's cheaper than milk. Soy Lecithin, I've heard some debate on this one, concocted from soy, a common emulsifier in chocolate, and a good surfactant, which is the nerdy way to say it helps it spread well. Some extol it's virtues, some say it's horrible, I say research it yourself. The old way to get this sort of emulsification and spreadability was to use an egg yolk, which yes! you guessed it, contains naturally occurring lecithins. Granted, it's also very perishable, so I don't know how viable an option it is in commercial production of an unrefrigerated product. But, now, if you want to make homemade nutella yourself, you know what to use. They do get a ding on using vanillin- come on Ferrero USA! Real vanilla extract is the way to go! But all in all, I'll eat it. Most likely because I can't help myself!

So open that jar of chocolate hazelnut wonder and start cracking.