Monthly Archives: April 2015

Strawberry Shortcake

Cakes and Cupcakes

Hi friends! I just got back from a visit to Pennsylvania for the annual Mennonite Relief Sale! It’s always a super fun time of eating homemade goods, auctioning off quilts, and much more (and it’s great knowing that all the proceeds go to charity!). While in Pennsylvania, we celebrated my sister’s birthday with a delicious strawberry shortcake. It was so good that I knew it was worthy of being my next recipe post! Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder (NOT BAKING SODA)
  • 1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small cubes
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 2/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder together in a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter, cut in the cold butter until the mixture looks like large crumbs.

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Measure out the milk in a liquid measuring cup, and then crack an egg into the milk. Beat the egg and milk together until they are thoroughly mixed.

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Pour the milk/egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Using a spoon, spatula, or your hands (my favorite tool) mix the ingredients together just until they’re moistened and combined. Don’t overmix it, or else you won’t get a light and flaky shortcake- you’ll get dense bread.

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Spread the dough into a greased 8″x1.5″ round baking pan. (We doubled the recipe, which is why you see two pans here.)

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Bake the dough for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes.

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While the cake is baking and cooling, you can get your berries going! We used fresh strawberries and blueberries, and just sprinkled sugar over them and let them macerate so that they were really sweet and juicy.

You can also make some fresh whipped cream! All you have to do is take however much you want of heavy whipping cream and, using either a stand mixer or a hand mixer, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Then, sprinkle some sugar into the cream until you have your desired sweetness.

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And now, put it all together into a sweet, light, and fresh dessert! This cake is so delicious and flaky and buttery, and the berries added the perfect touch of freshness and a slight tart bite. And of course, the whipped cream was just perfect. I hope you all give this recipe a try! Happy baking!

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Springtime at Last!

Lunch and Dinner

Hi everyone! I don’t want to jinx it, but it seems like Spring might finally be upon us! The warm weather rekindled our itch to get outside and grill, and so that’s what this post is all about! My dad got a new grill with a rotisserie for his birthday, so we had rotisserie chicken, and spice-grilled vegetables that were my responsibility. Here are the spices and other ingredients you’ll need for the veggies:

  • Garlic powder
  • Chili powder
  • Ground mustard
  • Fresh lemon juice
  • Salt
  • Black pepper

The veggies I used were zucchini, summer squash, asparagus, and green peppers. I cut the zucchini and squash into spears, the green pepper into wedges, and just cut the woody ends off of the asparagus. Arrange them on a baking sheet or a grilling pan.

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Squeeze lemons over the vegetables until they’re thoroughly coated to your liking.

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Now, sprinkle the spices over the vegetables in whatever quantities you choose! I used a few tablespoons of chili powder and garlic powder, and a very small amount (maybe a teaspoon) of the ground mustard. Then, sprinkle salt and pepper generously over all the vegetables.

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Put the pan in the grill at 350ºF, for about 10 minutes. You can turn the vegetables on the pan to get them browned all over, or you can just leave them. We tossed them at the very end, because we just wanted to get them softened and a bit browned.

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And now, just to show you how well the rotisserie worked, here’s a picture of the yummy chicken!

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Perfect, right? This was such a great spring meal- we ate like kings and the food was so light and fresh! This may be a simple recipe, but those vegetables were so delicious, and the spices brought out the natural flavor of the veggies. Seriously, you should try it! Happy grilling!