I love that strawberries are in season now in California. Whenever we’re at the farmer’s market, we cannot help but pick up a basket or three of them to take home. And besides eating them fresh, this is one application that I love to do using strawberries (the other is the vanilla layer cake that I’ve blogged about before).
I have been wanting to share this strawberry shortcake recipe with you for a while now. This was the recipe that I told you about in my other scones post. This dough is more moist and yet still buttery and flaky enough that it works for so many applications. As a matter of fact, Fine Cooking calls it a multi-purpose baking mix and I’ve used it to make scones, cobbler toppings, savory biscuits and of course, these strawberry shortcakes.
Do you love it because of its sweetness? Do you love it because of it’s symbol of spring? Or are you like Nate, who just recently came to love it because of someone else’s persistence in pushing this vegetable?
Pavlova With Blackberry, Raspberries, Mandarins, Kiwis and Strawberries
A Pavlova is a baked meringue dessert. It is made by beating egg whites and other ingredients to stiff peaks, then baking the mass “low and slow” so that the outer crust becomes crisp like a cookie but the inside remains soft like a marshmallow. It is then usually topped with whipped cream and fresh fruits. The Pavlova was created to honor the famed Russian dancer Anna Pavlova after one of her tours to New Zealand.
Our friend Felicia made a Pavlova for us at a previous dinner at their house, so I asked her to make another one for dessert for our recent Ultimate Ribs Showdown meal. I also asked her to provide the recipe and take pictures (I know, such a demanding host!) so that I could post the Pavlova recipe later. Here is that recipe.
We made this corn bread recipe as part of our Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 Ultimate Rib Showdown meal. It was really delicious and matched well with ribs. I got the corn bread recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart (I love this book by the way!). I’ve used it before in a Thanksgiving meal and loved it (Peter Reinhart recommends trying to find turkey skin in place of bacon for that). But hey, bacon is always good!
Corn Bread with Bacon
What I love about this corn bread is that the flavor of corn is very evident and there’s a really wonderful mouth-feel in the texture of the corn bread. This comes from the use of polenta-grind cornmeal and the fresh corn kernels that go into the bread. The buttermilk plays nicely with the sweetness of the corn and the bacon adds a nice savoriness to counter the sweetness of the whole bread. Overall, it’s a very rich, flavorful, and toothsome corn bread.
