Strawberry Shortcake

For Valentine's, we made heart-shaped  shortcakes. 

T and I are big fans of strawberry shortcake. It's easy to make and a great dessert for kids as they can assemble their bowls themselves. The first baking T did, as a toddler, was biscuits. I'd put a big beach towel on the floor, set him and the bowl of flour on the towel and let him cut the butter into the flour. Messy but fun. At fourteen, he is still a fan of making biscuits. We like shortcakes with all kinds of fruit - peaches, blueberries, or red raspberries can all be substituted for the strawberries. 

Strawberry Shortcakes

For the strawberries:

1 quart strawberries, as ripe as you can get, hulled and quartered

1 Tablespoon sugar

Mix the strawberries and sugar together in a bowl and set aside to let the berries macerate. Feel free to adjust the amount of sugar depending on your taste and the sweetness of the berries. 

For the biscuits (adapted from Betty Crocker's iconic recipe here)

2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, cold
1/2 to 3/4 cup milk
Preheat oven to 450 F. Combine the first four ingredients in a big bowl and mix well. Cut the butter into small chunks and add to the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter (example here) or two knives, cut the butter into the flour until the butter is worked in fairly well and the butter is no larger than a small pea. Add the milk and mix it in with a wooden spoon just until dough forms. If you add too much milk, the dough will be really sticky, so go easy on it. Once the dough comes together, dump it out onto a floured surface and knead it together a few times. Then roll the dough out to about 1/2-inch thick and cut into shapes for baking. Place on a cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. [Feel free to adjust the sugar in this recipe as well, we like ours a little less sweet so we only use a 1/2 Tablespoon of sugar.]

For the whipped cream
1 cup heavy cream, cold
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Whisk or beat together all ingredients until soft peaks form. Or use your favorite store bought whipped cream (my nephews love Reddi-Whip).

Assemble the shortcakes by splitting a biscuit in half (or breaking it into pieces), covering it with strawberries and then heaping whipped cream on top.

Valentines Day = Generosity Day

Valentines Cookies 2011

Baked and frosted with love, for the grandmas

Valentines Day = Generosity Day!

Saw this post from Katya this morning and loved it so much I had to share/participate!

Say yes to Generosity Day on Monday: It’s good for everyone, including you

For one day, you devote yourself to unfiltered, unfettered generosity. You will say yes to every request for help. What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day?

Why do this?

1. It is a nice thing to do for others on a day when not everyone feels loved.
2. It will be make you happy. (There is plenty of proof that helping people makes you happy.)
3. It will make you approach your life and work from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. (It’s a good idea to be generous when you’re hungry.)
4. It will make you better at the work of inspiring generosity in others.

When someone asks you for money, give it to him or her. Pay someone a compliment. Say yes to having coffee with someone who needs help networking. Do someone a favor.

Then spread the word! If you do so via Facebook or Twitter, please use the hashtag #generosityday to spread the word.

The project started with Sasha's post from Friday:

Rebooting Valentine’s Day

 This Monday, Valentine’s Day, is going to be rebooted as Generosity Day: one day of sharing love with everyone, of being generous to everyone, to see how it feels and to practice saying “Yes.”  Let’s make the day about love, action and human connection – because we can do better than smarmy greeting cards, overpriced roses, and stressed-out couples trying to create romantic meals on the fly.

The goal is to spend Valentine’s Day being more generous, giving more money, sharing of yourself, being of service.  All acts of generosity, small and big alike, count.  But you have to say YES to everything that’s asked of you, all day long! It’s about creating more generosity in the world, and becoming a more open person along the way.

What do you say? Are you in?

Valentines Cookies

Every year I bake special cookies for the Tallahassee Alumnae Panhellenic Scholarship Luncheon and Silent Auction. And this year, Thomas' class is having a cookie exchange. He'll take 25 cookies to share to school on the 12th and come home with 25 (different) cookies. We'll be baking a lot in the next week in our makeshift kitchen!

The recipe is the same as our favorite Christmas cookie dough. It comes from a recipe contest that was printed in Taste of Home magazine in the late 1990s.

"White Velvet Cutouts"

2 cups butter, at room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour

Cream the butter and cream cheese, then add the sugar and cream until smooth and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and vanilla and mix until fully combined. Add flour gradually, and blend until just combined. Split dough into 4 parts, wrap each one in plastic wrap and chill for at least 4 hours (overnight is better).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll out dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness, cut into shapes and bake 10-12 minutes until lightly golden brown.

Frosting is powdered sugar and water, mixed together to a nice thick, but spreadable consistency. Add vanilla (or other flavor) and/or food coloring as you like.

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