Single Guy’s Kitchen

Strawberry season has just begun in the CSRA (Central Savannah River Area) and there are plenty of “you pick” strawberry farms out there. Sure you can get strawberries from the grocery store or the local roadside stand, but there is something about picking your own. It’s a little cheaper since you are providing a piece of the labor and every strawberry is hand selected by you. I picked two buckets worth this weekend for $18.

So you’ve got your strawberries.  Now what to do them? Strawberries won’t keep for very long so they need to be used quickly. I wouldn’t leave strawberries in the fridge for more than a week personally. (Store your strawberries unwashed and uncut in a colander in the refrigerator.) Other than a steady diet of just plain strawberries or strawberries with sugar, what can you do? Strawberry Shortcake is the answer.

There are numerous ways to make strawberry shortcake from buying the pre-made cake “cups” to baking your own short cake. I used store-bought pound cake from Earthfare in my version. Strawberry shortcake can be as simple as serving a slice of cake with whipped cream and strawberries but mine was a little more involved. I layered the strawberries and whipped cream with the pound cake to create a new slice-able “cake”.

Ingredients

• 2 pound cake loaves - one regular, one chocolate
• Fresh, washed, and cut strawberries (about half a pound? I really don’t know)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• whipped cream or cool whip

Depending on how sweet your strawberries are you may want to add some sugar to them. I’d recommend doing this regardless of how sweet they are, at least add a little bit of sugar. You want to draw some of the liquid out of them and create moist, sweet strawberries that will soak into your cake. So the first step is to put your washed and cut strawberries into a seal-able container, coat with sugar, mix, seal, and place into the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. This gives the strawberries time to mix with the sugar.

When the two hours are up, you can start constructing the cakes (this recipe makes two). You want to slice each cake in half lengthwise so you have two large rectangular “slices” of pound cake, two chocolate and two vanilla. This really is like making a sandwich. Spread your whipped cream on the bottom layer and arrange your strawberries then spread some more on the inside of your top layer and place it on top of the bottom layer and the strawberries. Then put more whipped cream and strawberries on top of the “loaf”. The proportions are totally up to you, use as much or as little as whipped cream and strawberries as you want. Just bear in mind that pound cake is dense and can dominate the other flavors.

Once you’ve got the cake assembled, wrap it in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat. I did this to let the cake set and form into something solid and easy to slice.  I made it ahead of time so they had a couple hours to chill.  To make the wrapping easier I did all my assembly on top of plastic wrap.

I wrapped one with an outer layer of aluminum foil and stuck it in the freezer to enjoy at a later date. I’m not sure how it will turn out but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t keep for at least a couple months. I did do a couple extra layers of plastic wrap for good measure.

Enjoy!