Buckets of strawberries

Strawberries are everywhere. From festivals to markets to fruit salads to cobblers, we cannot stop finding them or eating them. To celebrate this deluge of fresh fruit, here are a few recent finds and favorites. Saveur recently offered a bright strawberry cake from Bertha's Kitchen in Charleston, South Carolina, that uses a strawberry cream cheese frosting, while Poires au Chocolat gives a terrific strawberry cream layered sponge cake that's now on my baking agenda. If you have access to Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook, I recommend his strawberry tart with its sweet crust, pastry cream, and fresh berries. And for a cocktail that uses fresh strawberries, try Dale DeGroff's Strawberry Nirvana, which makes use of a slightly fussy (but worth it) *triple* syrup (2 parts agave syrup, 2 parts simple syrup, ½ part honey syrup). 


However, the go-to recipe for piles of fresh strawberries in the summer is and should always be strawberry shortcake. Orangette recently posted a recipe with details on making the biscuits, and here I offer the recipe from Alice Waters's The Art of Simple Food for those with access to or recipes for the perfect sweet biscuit. Happy summer!

Strawberry Shortcake

(serves 6)

Hull and slice 4 cups of strawberries. Stir in ¼ cup sugar. Purée one quarter of the strawberry mixture. Stir the purée back into the sliced strawberries and let sit for 15 minutes. Combine in a bowl: 1 cup heavy cream, ½ tsp vanilla extract, 1 Tbs sugar (to taste). Whip together, until the cream just holds a soft shape. Slice in half 6 biscuits. Place the biscuit bottoms on serving plates. Over each biscuit, spoon strawberries and a dollop of the flavored whipped cream. Top with the other biscuit half and dust with powedered sugar. Serve immediately.