Spring-Beckoning Strawberry Shortcake

This past weekend had A LOT going on. From Wednesday on I had a sick little guy home with his sister and I, and then on Saturday we had our first Slovenian ER visit, so I decided that on Sunday we all needed a little pick-me-up.

My husband, Dan had just brought home a gorgeous pallet of strawberries, and I was itching to use them in something.

I turned to Instagram to ask my followers what they thought I should make, and as soon as I read "strawberry shortcake", I was sold! From what I learned "shortcake" can mean an array of things, from sweet biscuits/scones to spongecake. I love a recipe that uses buttermilk, and I was already out for a walk with a cranky toddler, so I decided to grab some buttermilk and heavy cream, and try my hand at this Sally's Baking Addiction recipe. It was a HUGE hit, to say the very least. It put us all in a better mood, and went perfectly with the sunshine we got that afternoon.

Ingredients:

Strawberries/Berries

- 5 cups strawberries (cut to your desired size) (and blueberries, if desired)

- 1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar

Vanilla Whipped Cream

- 1 tsp - 1 tbs vanilla extract (depending on how vanilla-y you want it)

- 3 tbs (38 g) granulated sugar

- 2 cups (approx.) (0.5 l) heavy whipping cream 

Shortcake/Sweet Biscuits

- 3 cups (375 g) all purpose flour

- 1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar

- 2 tbs baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

- 3/4 cup (180 g) unsalted butter (cubed and cold)

- 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk

- 2 tbs (30 ml) heavy whipping cream

- coarse or raw sugar for sprinkling

- lemon zest

Directions:

1. Stir the berries and 1/4 cup sugar together, cover and place in fridge.

2. Preheat oven to 425 F/218 C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

3. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer (or whisking by hand) combine the dry ingredients.

4. Cut in butter until it resembles cornmeal.

5. Remove bowl from mixer. Poor buttermilk on top, and mix by hand until just combined.

6. Move to flat, lightly floured work surface. Roll out to 1/2 inch thickness. using a biscuit cutter, cut out your biscuits (without twisting the cutter), and move to the baking sheet. Reshape and roll out leftover dough until it's all used up. Make sure the biscuits are touching on the baking sheet, apparently it helps them rise. Should make 11-12.

7. Brush tops with heavy cream, and sprinkle sugar on top.

8. Bake for 15 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown on top. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. 

9. While the biscuits are baking, whip together heavy cream, vanilla and 3 tbs sugar using a standing or hand mixer on a medium speed for about 3 minutes, until soft peaks form. Move to ziplock bag, and store in fridge until ready to serve.

10. Once biscuits are cooled but still warm, cut them in half. Cut a corner tip off your ziplock bag, pipe whipped cream onto the bottom half of the biscuit (like you're frosting a cupcake), and top with some yummy berries. Then add the top half of the shortcake/biscuit, top it with some more whipped cream and berries, grate some lemon zest on, and you're done! Ta-da!!

Honestly... deeeelish!

Ruby Chocolate Dipped Embossed Sugar Cookies

Since I made my favorite guy his own batch of Valentine's Day Peanut Butter Blossoms, I figured the kiddos could probably use a proclamation of my love, too - in cookie form.

Back during the Christmas holidays, I bought this amazing embossed rolling pin at the Budapest Christmas market. Sadly, I lost the business card of the artist, but you can Google search "embossed rolling pins", and find all different patterns, to fit any occasion.

I loved the one that I bought because it was reminiscent of some of the traditional Hungarian (or on broader terms, Eastern European) folk imagery. I've been dying to use it!

On a slightly sad note, my former sugar cookie dough and I on are a break. I want to be like, "it's not you, it's me", but really, I don't know who is at fault. The last couple times I've used it my cookies have spread to INSANE sizes and have lost all definition. I was on the search for the perfect "non-spread" sugar cookie dough recipe, as I really wanted the pretty pattern on these to stay defined and crisp. I decided to use one by Design, Eat, Repeat. I liked that it didn't need to be chilled. Well... it was okay. I cut out and baked a few cookies to start with, and felt like they were spreading more than I'd like. So, I cut out the rest, then let them sit in the fridge for maybe 15-20 minutes, and they turned out much better - but still spread more than "advertised". She has a picture on her blog post with the cookie cutter on top of her baked cookie, to show that there was basically no spread - I don't know what she did, but mine definitely spread, even with chilling a bit.

So, I'm still on the search for the perfect recipe.

That said, I will give you the recipe as I ended up using it, with you, sweet reader keeping in mind that if you have a favorite no-spread sugar cookie recipe, definitely use that! Also, hook a girl up! Let me in on your secret!

For these cookies specifically, you'll need these tools:

- a rolling pin with a thickness gauge (like this one, that I got for Christmas). Okay, this one isn't a "need", but I've found it to be really helpful.

- embossed rolling pin (you could just as easily cut out plain hearts and dip them, too. This just makes them a little "extra").

- Standing mixer

- Offset spatula

- Heart-shaped cookie cutter (any other shape will do too, but it's fun for Valentine's Day)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted butter (softened at room temperature - approx 2 hours)

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

150 gr ruby chocolate

sprinkles of your choice - I found the cutest ones yet, here. (I also really liked them with just the chocolate. They looked a little more "elegant".)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C.

2. Cream together butter and sugar on medium setting for about 20-30 seconds.

3. While mixer is going add egg and vanilla extract.

4. On a low speed add in baking powder and salt.

5. Still on the low speed, add the flour 1/2 cup at a time.

6. Mix until flour just combined.

7. Pour onto a slightly floured surface. Kneed into a ball for about 10 seconds, then flatten into a disc shape.

8. Using your (lightly floured) rolling pin with thickness gauges, roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Firmly roll the (lightly floured) embossed rolling pin over the dough, creating the gorgeous pattern.

9. Dip your cookie cutter in flour, find the part of the dough that fits it the best, and cut it out. Continue until you've used up all your dough, but do try hard not to re-kneed your dough over and over again. Makes 20-30 cookies, depending on size.

10. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Using an offset spatula, lift out the cookies and place them on the lined baking sheet.

11. Place the baking sheet in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

12. Remove the baking sheet from the fridge, and bake for 7-9 minutes, depending on size. (You can see in these two pictures - the top one was the first batch that I didn't chill. They got a little deformed. The second picture is of the ones I chilled. They kept their shape better.)

13. Allow cookies to fully cool. (10 minutes in baking sheet, then until room temperature on a cooling rack.)

14. While waiting for the cookies to cool, using the "Dutch oven method", melt the ruby chocolate. (A metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. Make sure the water level in the pot is low enough that it doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl.)

15. Take each cookie, dip it partially in the melted ruby chocolate. Allow excess to drip off, then place on a sheet of baking paper.

16. If desired, use sprinkles at this point.

17. Allow to fully cool. Keep in a cool, dry air tight space.

18. Take adorable pictures - because, memories. <3 

Extra tip:

- Ruby chocolate is a bit of a novelty, and I hated to let any go to waste. I had some left over after dipping all the cookies, so I poured it into a silicone ice cube tray, placed it in the fridge for it to set up, and then moved the chocolate cubes to a ziplock - ready to be quickly melted for a drizzle got another day.

If you decide to try this recipe, I would LOVE to know how it goes! Please feel free to leave a comment. :)

Valentine's Day Peanut Butter Blossoms

I am not a huge fan of peanut butter. Shhh...

But my favorite guy IS! So, for Valentine's Day I decided to make a batch of peanut butter blossoms just for him!

Valentine's Day of course means hearts, so I set out looking for chocolate hearts... I could not find them ANYWHERE!! They all had some kind of filling! I finally found some plain Milka hearts, but then were large and thin. 

So, I decided to make my cookies bigger too, and double up on the chocolate hearts for a nice chocolate to cookie ratio.

They turned out super cute, and hopefully made my honey feel very loved. So now I'm sharing the recipe with you!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter at room temp.

1/2 cup sugar 

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg at room temperature

2 tbs milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

48 large Milka hearts

extra sugar in bowl

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl combine the ingredients in order given (except for chocolate and extra sugar).

2. Preheat oven to 375 F / 190 C. 

3. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

4. Scoop out approx 2 tbs cookie dough, roll into ball, roll in sugar and place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart. 

3. Flatten top slightly.

4. Bake for 12 minutes, until edges slightly golden brown.

5. Remove from oven, set on heat-safe surface.

6. Gently press 2 chocolate hearts stacked on top of each other onto the cookie, until cookie slightly cracks around edges. (Do this step as soon after they come out of the oven as possible.)

7. Using a spatula transfer cookies to a wire cooling rack, and allow to fully cool. (Because you have to wait for the chocolate to fully harden back up too, it'll take a little longer than other cookies.)

Makes 24 cookies

+ If you were able to find chocolate hearts that are about the same size as chocolate kisses, or one Milka chocolate square, make your cookie balls 1 tbs size and bake for 9-10 minutes. There is also no need to flatten them down at this size. Will make approx 48 cookies.

So, happy Valentine's Day to my favorite peanut butter loving guy!  

You're simply the best!