Strawberry-Mania

Southern Living's website has a great special on strawberries: 25 Indulgent Strawberry Treats

I've picked out a few that look particularly delicious and that I am going to try in the near future.

Strawberry-Buttermilk Sherbet

• 2 cups fresh strawberries*
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Garnish: fresh mint sprigs

1. Process strawberries in a food processor or blender 30 seconds or until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides. Pour strawberry puree through a fine wire-mesh strainer into a large bowl, pressing with back of a spoon. Discard solids. Add buttermilk, sugar, and vanilla to puree; stir until well blended. Cover and chill 1 hour.

2. Pour strawberry mixture into freezer container of a 1 1/2-qt. electric ice-cream maker, and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. (Instructions and times may vary.) Garnish, if desired.

*1 (16-oz.) package frozen strawberries, thawed, may be substituted.

Croissant French Toast with Strawberry Syrup

• 4 large day-old croissants
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Slice croissants in half lengthwise.

Whisk together milk, eggs, and vanilla. Pour into a shallow dish. Dip croissant halves into egg mixture, coating well.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add four croissant halves, and cook about 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Repeat procedure with remaining butter and croissant halves. Sprinkle with powdered sugar; top with Sweetened Whipped Cream, if desired, and Fresh Strawberry Syrup.

Strawberry Sparkler

• 1 (10-ounce) package frozen strawberries, thawed
• 2 cups cranberry juice, chilled
• 1 (750-milliliter) bottle champagne, chilled*

Process strawberries in a blender until smooth; pour into a pitcher. Stir in cranberry juice and champagne, and serve immediately.

*1 (1-liter) bottle sparkling water, chilled, may be substituted.

The rest of the strawberry treats can be found here.

St. Patrick's Day Brownie Cupcakes

For St. Patrick's day I made some brownies, but instead of using a rectangle-shaped pan, I put them in a cupcake pan. Once the batter was made, I poured enough so that it would cover 1/4 of each cupcake then I placed a peppermint patty and poured the remaining batter on top. I saw this idea on another website and thought I should try it out because I love mint chocolate flavored desserts (if you couldn't tell by the cake I just made). Since I was baking brownies and not chocolate cake mix in the cupcake pan, it took longer for them to bake (about 25 minutes).

For the icing, I used the same buttercream recipe that I used for the previous post, but this time I put 5 drops of green food coloring. To top it off, I put green sprinkles.

Mint Chocolate Cake

Over the weekend I made a 2-layer mint chocolate cake. I used one 9" round pan and one 8" round pan. This cake was the same shape as the lemon cake I made last week. To make the cake taste like mint, I added about 2 teaspoons of peppermint extract to the chocolate batter. Some people may want to add more or less extract, depending on how minty they want the cake.

I made buttercream icing using the recipe on the back of the powdered sugar package (butter, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract) but I added an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract to the icing for more flavor. After making the icing, I mixed 1 drop of green food coloring, but saw that it was not minty-green enough, so I added 1 more drop. Perfect!

After letting the cakes cool, I transferred the 9" one to a silver platter and began icing this cake just in the middle, because for the design I was going to do, I thought it would be easier to ice certain parts of the cake, then decorate, and ice the rest. Well, this proved to be more annoying than helpful, so I decided to ice the entire cake.

For the decorations, I used mini chocolate chip morsels and sprinkled them around the sides of the 2 cakes. The bottom layer was much easier to apply chocolate chips to, because if they did not stick to the side they would fall on the plate, which was fine. But for the top layer, if the chocolate chips did not stick to the side, then they would fall on the bottom layer and I would have to pick them off (once you see the next picture this will make more sense).

When putting the chocolate chips on the top layer, I had to put them on one by one so they would not fall, kind of tedious, but totally worth it. For a little extra pizazz, I put some on the top of the cake, too. I was going to flavor the icing with peppermint extract as well, but like the lemon cake, I didn't want to have a mint overload!

Last Minute Chocolate Pie

If you are ever in need of a last minute dessert, this chocolate pie is your answer. All you need is a graham cracker pie crust, a large box of chocolate pudding, cool whip, and a milk chocolate candy bar.

Make the chocolate pudding as directed and pour it into the pie crust, evenly spreading it around. Put this in the refrigerator until a few minutes before you serve it. To make the chocolate shavings, I use a carrot peeler and a Hershey's chocolate bar. I run the peeler down the side of the candy bar to make small shavings. Before you serve, add the cool whip and chocolate shavings. Simple as that!

You can substitute the type of crust and pudding flavors to whatever you desire. If you're in a rush to make a dessert, this is your best bet, besides store bought cookies!

Spring Drinks to Wet Your Whistle

There is no doubt that when Spring and Summer arrive lemonade is a top drink choice. Well, here are two drink recipes, one for those of us that are over 21 and one for the younger, less fortunate folks. Both recipes are from the Southern Living website.

Frosty Lemon Martini

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• lemon wedge
• 1 cup crushed ice
• 6 tablespoons chilled lemon-flavored vodka
• 2 tablespoons chilled lemon-flavored liqueur
• 4 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 thin strips lemon peel

1. Pour sugar onto a small, rimmed plate. Rub rims of two martini glasses with lemon wedge to moisten, then dip rims into sugar to coat.

2. Place ice in a cocktail shaker. Add vodka, liqueur, and lemon juice. Shake until mixture is very cold, about 10 seconds. Strain into glasses. Garnish each with a twist of lemon peel.

Makes 2 servings. For extra frostiness, put the sugar-rimmed glasses in the freezer for 8 minutes. December 2003


Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade

• 3 cups fresh lemon juice (about 20 lemons)
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 12 cups water

Combine juice and sugar in a one-gallon container; stir until sugar dissolves. Stir in water. Serve over ice.

Makes 16 servings. July 2003 issue

Enjoy!

Very Strawberry Cake

To celebrate Race for the Cure weekend, I made a 2-layer strawberry cake with strawberry icing and topped off with sliced strawberries. If you don't like strawberries, then you definitely won't like this cake!

The cake was pretty easy to make and decorate, just your basic 2-layer round cake. The sliced strawberries were a last minute idea and actually if you ever put fruit on top of a cake, make sure they are washed and completely dry. These strawberries had been washed, but had not had enough time to dry before I put them on the cake, and they started to slide off, so I had to stick wooden toothpicks in them to make them stay. oops!

The table was decorated in pink and white, of course. We served lettuce wrap tacos, olive spread and baguette, sausage jalepenos poppers, and some veggies, unfortunately none of which is pictured but all of which was delicious!

Baking with Egg Whites

Last night I made some cupcakes with egg whites. It was the first time I had ever used egg whites and I don't think I'll ever go back to using the whole egg again. With the egg whites, the cupcakes were fluffier and lighter than normal, which is always a plus. This particular recipe called for 3 eggs or 4 eggs whites, not a difficult transition. I wasn't making the cupcakes for a special occasion, so I thought it would be a good time to try out egg whites and not have to worry about it.

I also wanted to give out some information about baking with egg whites.

1. When making cakes or pastries that involve egg whites, it is vital that you prepare all and mix all the other ingredients first.
2. Using older eggs will give you egg whites that are thinner and whip up more easily and give you a larger volume. However, fresher eggs will give you more stability, but slightly lower volume after whipped.
3. It is helpful that before you use the egg whites, you let them warm up to room temperatureyo. Keep them out on the counter for 3o minutes to do this. This helps the proteins to expand more resulting in increase in volume when you whip up your egg whites.
4. Egg whites are high in protein and low in cholesterol = good for you.

So if you don't already bake with egg whites, should consider starting. It's just one small step that you can take to have a healthier life (not that cakes and cookies and cupcakes are exactly healthy).