Strawberry Shortcake

Hi Everyone,

Big plans for the Valentine’s weekend?  I know it’s a little early, but, with Valentine’s Day on a Tuesday this year, I figured most will be celebrating over the weekend.  For me, I have no plans as of yet, waiting for my Hubby, hint hint!  But one thing I know I will be doing is making holiday treats!!  Oh, there are so many recipes I want to try I can’t wait!!  Everyone has been posting such scrumptious desserts, cookies and more.  Yum yum!!  I have a major sweet tooth this week!

Speaking of holidays and recipes, today I am posting one of my all time favorites.  But first let me tell you that today’s post is a The Holiday Recipe Club Blog Hop hosted by Erin from Big Fat Baker.  This holiday we have to feature one of three items, which are either Strawberries, Heavy Cream or Beef.  For me, I actually used two of the ingredients which is heavy cream and strawberries.

I just love this recipe!  It’s a strawberry shortcake made on shortbread and I actually used heavy cream.  I haven’t bought or used heavy cream in years!!  I made this recipe because it reminds me of the days when I was dating my Husband, back in my early 20’s.  I decided one day to surprise him with a full-blown big strawberry shortcake cake.  I was so proud of my creation!  But you know what?  I never got a piece of it.  He took the whole thing to work, the whole BIG cake, and he ate the whole thing.  Dam him!  He always does that to me!  But he loved it and that’s all that counts!  How do you think I got him to marry me?  🙂  So in memory of our younger years, I decided to bake him this cake so we can reminisce over old times.

By the way he still mentions, why don’t you bake me pies and cakes like you did when we first started going out?  I told him that’s when I became fat!  🙂  Dating can be bad for your waistline!

Instead of making one cake, I decided to cut my recipe in half and make 4 small individual cakes, since it’s just the two of us.  I used 4-6oz size ramekins to cook the shortbread.  If you do this be careful because I cooked these a little longer then I should have, but they still turned out tasty!!

Ain’t love grand?  The bigger one in the middle was for my Husband and the smaller one was for me.  Now normally I would never use heavy cream, but since this was a special occasion, I decided what the heck, why not?  The cream turned out beautiful, I like it really thick.  The strawberries are so sweet,  I let them sit for about an hour in a little bit of sugar.  Yum!!!

Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:

3 Cups sliced strawberries

1 Tbsp. Sugar

Shortbread Ingredients::

2 Tbsp. Sugar

1 Cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 cup margarine or butter

2 Tbsp. egg, beaten

1/3 cup non-fat milk

Whipping Cream Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

1 Tbsp. Sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450

Stir together berries and 1 Tbsp. sugar, aset aside.

For the shortbread:  Stir together 2 Tbsp. sugar, flour and baking powder. Cut in margarine till mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Combine egg and milk, add all at once to dry ingredients. Stir till just moisten.

Spread into a greased 4 – 6oz ramekins, building up the edge slightly.

Bake for 13 – 16 minutes or till toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan, split into 2 layers.

To make whip cream:

In a small bowl, mix cream, sugar and vanilla extract, beat until a heavy cream, about 5 minutes.

Spoon the fruit and whipped cream between layers and over top. Serve immediately.

Serving Size: 4 6 oz servings

Number of Servings: 4

NOTE:  If you double the recipe, you can use an 8″ round cake pan and cook for 20 – 30 minutes.  It’s so pretty when you have a full size cake.

Calories per serving:  357,  Fat:  15,  Cholesterol:  40,  Sodium:  198,  Potassium:  243,  Carbs:  45.6,  Fiber:  3.5,  Sugar:  19, Protein:  6.1

Now the calories come from the whip cream, if you cut out the whip cream and use non-fat canned whip cream, you’re looking at about 244 calories and 5 grams of fat!  Heavy cream is so high in calories, now you see why I barely use it?

As I’m typing this, I’m thinking I want to make this again.  I really love strawberry shortcake!  Strawberries and whip cream are a match made in heaven!   But for dessert tonight, I settled on greek yogurt with pineapple, coconut, chocolate almond butter and peanut butter Cheerios.  I know a weird combo, but I wanted a little bit of everything!!  For some reason dinner doesn’t seem complete without some kind of dessert and my normal go to dessert is yogurt, stocked high with fruity treats and peanut butter!!!

Don’t forget to check out the Holiday Blog Hop Recipes.  I can’t wait to see what goodies everyone made.  If your interested in joining just go to http://holidayrecipeclub.com.

Have a Super Fab Day!!!