Browsing Tag

strawberries

Summertime

Meringue-Topped Strawberry Rhubarb Custard Slices

June 26, 2024

Rhubarb, that gorgeously deep-pink vegetable that is most often used as a fruit, keeps really well in the fridge. I learned this accidentally–nearly forgetting the bundle I brought home from the farmer’s market. Finding it while making room for just-picked strawberries, I knew this heirloom recipe would put it to good use.

With a custard filling, meringue topping and shortbread crust, this dessert blends best features of strawberry rhubarb pie and British rhubarb fool:  The rhubarb melts into the creamy filling but retains a nice tart tang, the meringue adds fluffy chew, and the crust doesn’t get soggy. Featured in the second edition of Ebenezer Lutheran Church’s “Desserts Through the Ages,” and given to me by my BFA’s mom (thanks, Mrs. B!) the recipe caption tells us it was Curt S.’s favorite from his mother’s dessert roster.  She made it with five cups of diced rhubarb, which is very good, but it also works very with the addition of fresh strawberries as in photos. Continue Reading…

Mile High Srawberry Pie

Fresh Strawberry Pie

July 25, 2022

This fresh strawberry pie, stacked high with just-picked farmers-market berries in a strawberry-juice glaze, comes with a great backstory. Liberace (pianist Vladziu Valentino Liberace)—once the world’s highest-paid entertainer, loved this pie, ordering it by the dozen from the place it was born: the now-defunct Hess Bros. Department store, of Allentown, PA. The man who sold it to him–Max Hess, Jr., was nearly as big a showman as Liberace himself. Continue Reading…

Brunch Bunch

Banana-Stuffed French Toast with Strawberries

May 23, 2022

Since debuting in 1971 at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, Tonga Toast–a cinnamon-sugared chunk of flash-fried, banana-stuffed breakfast bliss–has always been a top seller. Michael Thompson, a Polynesian Resort chef for seven years, can’t give out exact sales numbers,  but sums: “Let’s just say we receive our bananas by the pallet load!”

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Babycakes

Strawberry Shortcakes with Sugared Cream Biscuits, Strawberries & Cream

June 15, 2019

Dough made with a high fat-to-flour ratio is called “short” and bakes up into the tender crumbly biscuits we call shortcake. Although my mom sometimes brought home store-bought cell-o packs of little yellow sponge cakes to serve as the base for strawberry shortcake desserts, those were never as good fresh, hot biscuits topped with strawberries in their hot-pink sugared juice, and plenty of fresh whipped cream.

 First featured in a British cookbook in 1588, strawberry shortcake went on to become very popular in the United States, where by the 1850s it was served hot with both butter, cream, and of course: sweetened fresh strawberries. Continue Reading…