Mini Strawberry Shortcakes

The Art.

    Strawberries are having a wonderful season this year, and whether you take advantage of the discounted cartons at the grocery store or choose to go berry picking, chances are you have a fridge full of strawberries right now. The mild temperatures and plentiful rain we've had in our area has produced some very delicious, sweet fruit, and I wanted to showcase the beautiful berries in a light dessert. Naturally, I made some strawberry shortcakes, but with a fresher twist. I nixed the heavy biscuit and replaced it with my standard yellow cake. These cakes have a springy texture, yet are sturdy enough to stand up to the water content of the strawberries. They are layered with an unsweetened puree of fresh strawberries, and a dollop homemade whipped cream blended with cream cheese. Topping it off with a halved strawberry adds unadulterated fruit flavor and some nice contrasting color provided by the leaves.

    Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, this recipe comes with a bonus dessert! Since these round cakes are cut from a 9x13 cake, you will have some pieces left over. I suggest layering them in champagne flutes with any extra berries and cream to make some fancy parfaits.

The Science.

    Making fresh fruit desserts in the summer is such a treat, but we need to be careful to enhance the naturally sweet flavors, and not overpower them. Sampling your fruit before you begin to bake will give you an idea of how much sugar you need to add. Baking with berries that are in season improves the chances that their flavor will be optimal, because strawberries are a fruit that must be picked when ripe and will not ripen any further once they are harvested [1]. Immature berries have high levels of citric acid, which is what makes them taste sour. As the fruit matures, the acidity decreases and there is an increase in glucose and fructose sugars [2,3]. The best strawberries will have a balance of sweet and tart flavors, and adding too much refined sugar can upset this balance. Complimenting the fresh strawberries with flavors that are not too sweet ensures that the light, tart notes can still shine through.

The Recipe.

Yellow cake:
1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons salted butter
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk

    Preheat oven to 350^oF. Coat a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and line with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat butter in large bowl on medium-high until fluffy, then gradually beat in sugar. Beat eggs in, one at a time. Stir vanilla into buttermilk. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to butter/sugar/egg mixture while beating on low speed.  Beat an additional 30 seconds. Pour batter into mold/pan and spread evenly. Lift and drop on the counter a couple times to eliminate bubbles in the batter. Bake on center rack for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes, remove the parchment paper, then place on wire rack until completely cool.

    If you have a 1.5-inch round cookie cutter, use it to cut out 20 individual cakes. If you're like me and don't have a round cookie cutter, use the rim of a champagne flute. (Doing this is what gave me idea to make parfaits with the leftover cake bits.)

Strawberry Puree:
10-12 strawberries, quartered
2 tablespoons triple sec

    Place quartered strawberries in food processor and pulse in 3 to 5 short bursts, just until chunks are uniform. You should have about 1 to 1 1/2 cups puree. If your strawberries are sweet, you won't need to add any sugar. If they are a little tart, add just enough sugar to take the edge off the tartness. 

    Place puree in a fine mesh strainer and let juices drain into a small saucepan. Set puree aside. Simmer juices over low heat with triple sec until reduced to 2 tablespoons, then stir into puree and refrigerate while making the whipped cream.

Whipped Cream:
4oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup 40% heavy whipping cream
pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

    Place a medium bowl in an ice bath. Beat cream cheese in the bowl until fluffy. Slowly beat in cream on low speed until incorporated. Add salt, vanilla, and sugar. Beat on high until stiff peaks form, then beat an additional 30 seconds. Keep cream chilled until ready to use.

Assembly:
    Lay cakes out on work surface. Spoon approximately 1 teaspoon of strawberry puree onto each cake, spreading almost to the edges. Place whipped cream in a piping bag fitted with a 1M star tip, and pipe a star on each cake. Top cakes with a halved strawberry. Refrigerate cakes and serve within one day.

1. Kader, A. "Fruit Maturity, Ripening, and Quality Relationships." http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-167.pdf

2. Mahmood, T, et al. "Compositional Variation in Sugars and Organic Acids at Different Maturity Stages in Selected Small Fruits from Pakistan." International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2012, Vol. 13(2): pp. 1380-1392.
3. Mikulic-Petkovsek, M et al. "Composition of Sugars, Organic Acids, and Total Phenolics in 25 Wild or Cultivated Berry Species." Journal of Food Science 2012, Vol. 77(10): pp. C1064-C1070.

Greek Tea Cookies (Kourambiethes)

The Art.

    There's just something about dusting cookies with powdered sugar that makes my mouth water. 

When I was a child, kourambiethes were my favorite cookie for this very reason. When the Greek church would have events, there would be trays and trays of kourambiethes painstakingly prepared by the old Yiayias of the congregation, and let me tell you, these women really knew how important powdered sugar is. Their cookies were piled high with at least an inch of generously sifted powdered sugar, a child's dream come true. Sometimes I really miss those heady days of powdered sugar and cheek pinching, and I get a hankering to make some kourambiethes. Of course, my tastes have changed a bit since then, and I've developed this recipe to make nutty, buttery cookies that aren't too sweet. The trick is to add less sugar to the dough and use salted butter--something most bakers would consider a blasphemy, but I am a strong advocate of complementing sweet flavors with savory ones.

The Science.

    Not only are these tea cookies coated with powdered sugar, they also have a wonderful texture that is light and crumbly. This is because I pulse some of the walnuts into a meal, which releases the oils. Along with the butter, the walnut oils make the cookies "short," meaning that the fats interact with the gluten in the flour and prevent it from holding the cookies together [1]. The walnut meal also makes the cookies lighter because it is more coarse than flour, preventing the butter from making the cookie dense and cakey. Adding a little brandy to the dough not only imparts a deep flavor, the alcohol also inhibits gluten aggregation [2]. The result is a nutty, crumbly cookie with a hint of brandy flavor and sugar.

    One more reason why these cookies turn out amazingly well is because they are baked on a light-colored air bake cookie sheet. The air pockets in the pan and the light color keep the bottom of the cookies from baking faster than the top. If you use a dark pan or your cookies are resting on a thick piece of heat-absorbing metal, your cookies will burn on the bottom before they are done. If you follow this advice with all your cookie recipies, I think you'll find that your cookies will always bake up beautifully even from top to bottom.

The Recipe.

Kourambiethes: (Makes 50)

2 cups chopped walnuts, divided

2 cups flour

¾ t salt

2 sticks salted butter, softened

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1½ teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons brandy

1 cup powdered sugar

    Preheat oven to 350F.  Place racks at upper middle and lower middle positions. In medium bowl, combine 1 cup nuts, flour, and salt.  Pulse the remaining cup of nuts in a food processor until fine, about the consistency of corn meal.  Stir into flour mixture. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in vanilla and brandy.  Add flour mixture and mix until evenly incorporated.

    Roll dough into tablespoon-sized balls, and place on an ungreased cookie sheet approximately 1 inch apart.  Bake 35min, or until golden, rotating racks top-to-bottom and front-to-back halfway through to promote even baking. 

     Cool cookies on baking sheet 2min, then roll in powdered sugar while still hot. This gives the cookies a delicious coating of partially melted sugar. Place on cooling rack and cool 25 minutes.  Once completely cool, dust with additional powdered sugar from sifter.

1.  Zannini, E. et al. "Functional Replacements for Gluten." Annual Review of Food Science and Technology 2012, Vol. 3: pp 227-245.

2.  Wieser, H. "Chemistry of gluten proteins." Food Microbiology 2007, Vol. 24(2): pp 115-9.