In Northern California spring can start in February and continue through May. First we see daffodils, then flowering pear, plum, crab apple and quince trees. Spring crops come in slowly: green garlic, lettuce, then asparagus, followed by peas. On my last Farmers’ Market visit two weeks ago the strawberries had white shoulders and the grower I like to buy them from (Lucero Farms of Lodi) had not yet taken up a stall, but I had a feeling I would find strawberries today, and there they were, small red Seascape berries with long stems destined for the year’s first strawberry shortcake.
There are many variations of strawberry shortcake: you can make it with angel food cake or lemon pound cake or sponge cake or olive oil citrus cake. I have tried them all, but my favorite recipe for strawberry shortcake is a biscuit base, split and covered with fresh strawberries, served with lightly sweetened whipped cream. To honor the ritual of spring I will use organically grown Farmers’ Market strawberries, and whipping cream from Straus Dairy in Marin County.
I will buy my cream at a local supermarket, but because it is Earth Day I want to think a bit about what it took to produce this traditional spring dessert. Someone had to plant the strawberries, tend them, water them, pick them, bring them to market. Someone had to raise sugarcane and refine it. Someone mined the salt, picked vanilla pods, raised wheat, ground it into flour. Someone had to raise the dairy cow, feed her on grass, milk her. Someone had to separate the cream, sterilize the bottles, fill and cap them. Someone had to drive the cream to the supermarket. Someone had to put it on the shelves. Someone had to drive the bus that takes me from market to market and home again. In a day gone by, members of my family, relatives from a few generations back, might have kept the cow and skimmed the cream and planted the strawberries in Illinois where they farmed, but my parents both moved to California as teenagers and never went back to the Midwest. Celia’s small farm at The Kitchens Garden might be something like the farms my mother knew in her youth, farms with hedgerows, vegetable gardens, small orchards, cows and chickens, diversified crops.
In California I now buy the bulk of my produce from an organic farm eighty-seven and a half miles from where I live. Someone drives to Berkeley each Wednesday and places boxes of vegetables and fruit on a front porch. I take a bus and walk several blocks, load the heavier vegetables into my backpack and the delicate items into a canvas bag. I have no choice in what goes into my produce box: someone at Riverdog Farm decides what is best each week and loads it up. I unpack the box and fold it: the farm driver will collect it the next week. I like the idea that I am getting produce picked that morning or the previous day and I like it that in a small way my food dollars are supporting small, diversified agriculture on a farm that uses organic growing methods: although I cannot farm myself I have farming roots. Small farmers are real to me, people that raise food and think about how they are raising it. The Capay valley where my produce comes from has many small farms started by former students at U.C. Davis on land that agribusiness did not want.
I shop at the Farmers Market to supplement my produce box. There I can buy a flat of peaches in June, more corn in July, bunches of fresh basil in August, these first spring strawberries in April. Every week I can walk down the center aisle and look to see what has come in, compare prices, sniff the air perfumed by seasonal fruit. I am grateful to live in a state where the growing season is long and next to a city that supports three different farmers’ markets year-round.
Enough. Now it is time to go into the kitchen to make that special shortcake with the first strawberries.
First, shake the cream bottle to redistribute the fat evenly. Then pour the grassy-smelling cream into a small mixing bowl and set it into the refrigerator to chill, along with the beaters. The cream will triple in volume as you whip it, so make sure your bowl is not too small. If you wish, you may season it at this point: I like to add 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla and, sometimes, the barest grating of fresh nutmeg.
While the cream chills, prepare the shortcake:
Preheat the oven to 425.
Sift together 2 cups of flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp sugar.
Cut in 1/3 cup unsalted butter (if you use salted butter, omit the kosher salt)
Add 1 cup milk
Stir just until combined.
Put into a buttered cake pan.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until lightly browned in spots.
While the shortcake bakes, prepare the strawberries: remove the hulls and stems and then wash berries in a minimum of water. Let them drain in a colander or pat them dry. Taste one. If your berries are ripe and sweet, you need not add anything, but if you are my mother you will insist on adding a few tablespoons of sugar so that the berries give off more juice — it’s your choice since Mom is not in the kitchen with you. You will also whip the cream now. We like ours moderately stiff so that we don’t have to whip it again the next day.
Once the shortcake is out of the oven, split it in half and pile berries between the layers and on top. Serve with whipped cream.
I will return the plastic strawberry baskets to the market next week for re-use (and perhaps buy more strawberries). I will return the cream bottle to the grocery store eventually, collect my deposit and try not to buy more cream for awhile.
Food Notes: Strawberry shortcake features two elemental foods, cream and strawberries. To make a delicious shortcake, start with the best cream and berries you can find: local dairy cream and organically grown berries will give you the best flavor. Some things are worth waiting for and it is better to make this with ripe, red strawberries that have developed their sugars than to use white-capped or green berries. If you cannot get local cream, choose cream from your market that has not been marked “ultrapasteurized.” Ultrapasteurized cream has been heated to a high temperature to give it a longer shelf life and has a cooked taste that you will want to avoid once you have tasted the alternative. We sweeten our cream with white cane sugar to keep the flavor pure, but you are free to use any sweetener you prefer as long as you do not introduce chemical sweeteners. Finally, you may use any sort of cake or biscuit base that you like, but I implore you to bake it yourself and eat it while it is warm from the oven.
Yay!! You made it! I love this post today.. I think it was one of your finest pieces you’ve written (not that I’ve read them all yet!). You had me at the sweet little berries with their long stems.. then the description of the care and dedication of local growers.. your reference to c and her farm.. then the surprises found in your produce box! I feel like I’ve gone on a long and beautiful journey with you today. I, too, love the markets we have near the lake in the summer.. boxes of peaches are the pinnacle for sure!! What an excellent recipe as well.. I’d better stop… I’m gushing!! xo Smidge Oh.. yes.. your beautiful painting too!!
Thank you so much. I worried that the post was long and rambling, but I did want to write about where things come from.
Oh, childhood memories abound with my favorite dessert of all time – this version sounds wonderful, especially with such carefully sourced ingredients! Love this post Sharyn!
Thank you, Shira. We look forward to it every year.
This post is so awesome! A sweet strawberry shortcake is unbeatable and spring’s best friend!
Powered by your childhood, it is simply extra fabulous 😀
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Thanks, CCU. I can’t imagine spring in California without an eventual round of strawberry shortcake.
Wonderful and deeply considered celebration of baking, spring and Earth Day – you took my senses and thoughts on a gentle walking meditation – thank you
I love the traditional strawberry shortcake as well. There is nothing better and more refreshing than ruby red, ripe strawberries on a homemade biscuit topped with fresh cream. It’s my favorite springtime desert!
It does just cry spring, doesn’t it, Jackie? For me, strawberries are just the beginning of all the late spring and summer fruits to come after the long winter of citrus.
Long & rambling? Heavens no, Sharyn! As a child, strawberry shortcake was a favorite dessert and practically a rite of Spring in our house. Although Mom used freshly baked pound cake as the base, I’ve come to love a good biscuit base, as well. This post works for me in so many ways! Thanks.
You’re welcome, John. I keep an eye on the length of my pieces and get a bit concerned when they creep above a thousand words — people say that we all have short attention spans nowadays, but strawberry shortcake sure got my attention!
I’m seeing so many strawberry post lately thatI too am now craving something sweet. I just made a salad but this sounds much more satisfying 😉
Love the name of your blog! I’ve been in such a Kale mood lately
Thank you. I stole the name from someone who just used it once — I thought it was catchy and memorable and would adequately describe the challenges of seasonal cooking. If I had started it this year, it might have been called “Leeks and Tangerines.”
We’ve had one hot day when we would have happily eaten salad, but it has been too chilly most days to eat cold food here.
Sharyn,I don’t say this often, but this post is a keeper! I need to share it over and over–or memorize it, giving you full credit, of course! My awareness of what you’ve shared about supporting local farms and all that goes with it has been slowly developing over a long time. As a result, the changes in my perspective aren’t easily understood by many of my friends and I don’t always express myself well. You’ve done it beautifully. And on top of it, strawberry shortcake. The strawberry stands are up and running down here and you’ve given me a reason to stop by and “load up.” Next time I’m in the Bay Area to see my cousins I’m going to ask to go to a local Farmer’s Market–it would be fun to note the different local offerings. 🙂 Debra
Thank you, Debra. If I were richer, I would buy everything I could from local producers, drink Straus milk all the time (although Mom was not pleased that I bought unhomogenized milk!). As it is, I do the best I can. Have fun with the strawberries. My favorite market is the Saturday market on Center Street, around 10 to 2.
A sure sign of spring, strawberry shortcake is to me, although strawberries are not quite in season just yet…a couple more months. I admire your dedication to organic and the 100 mile radius.
Eva http://kitcheninspirations.wordpress.com
These were the first decent strawberries we have had, Eva, and they will be better in the months to come. Our spring is late this year in terms of crops. I’m not sure what I would do about food if I lived in the far north: I like to think I would preserve more things and raise vegetables in cold frames, but that might not be the case. I think we all do the best we can and I wish I had learned more of the old ways when I was young.
Hey, this is Susie at susartandfood here and I have nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award – this because I really enjoy your blog. Please check in at
http://www.susartandfood.wordpress.com. Congrats and forgive me. This was one I needed to accept so wanted to share.
Thank you, Susie. These awards just keep going around and around. Congratulations on receiving another one.
And you – 🙂
Sharyn – this sounds delicious! I am bookmarking your recipe and waiting patiently for my strawberry plants to go into season – so cool that you have fresh local strawberries in CA already!
Strawberries are actually late this year and not at their best yet, but sometimes you just want to eat something different.
Just made this – so delicious! I took some pics too, I am doing a post mostly about growing strawberries but I would love to post a link to this recipe on my blog, if it’s okay with you?
Yes, you may post a link. Thank you for asking.
I’m trying to find the words to express my feelings. Thank you just doesn’t do it enough justice. A fabulous, strong, passionate post, simple but beautifully structured, amusing, and heartfelt post. From the way you describe the strawberries to the smell of the cream.
It will be months yet before I get to sample strawberries, either local or homegrown but I’m celebrating your Californian Spring alongside you.
Thank you, Claire. I hope that when your strawberries come they will be delicious and you will enjoy them.
I’m just waiting for the farmers market to open here so I can grab fresh strawberries!
Oh, I know. It is so good to have them after the long winter and early spring without them.
Yum, Yum…. this is family favorite. I am bookmarking your recipe for our next Strawberry Shortcake celebration
This is what we do with the first strawberries every year, Jane, the only variation being whether to make a big shortcake like I did this year or several small ones.
You shop like a Parisian woman, going from market to market, from display to display, taking the time to pick and choose quality produce and foods, fully and consciously involved and invested in the process. A pleasure to read. I think it is earth day every day in your kitchen because of this.
Not hardly, as we used to say in high school (meaning “Hardly.”), but thank you. I just don’t blog about it when we eat canned chili because no one has any energy or inspiration to cook whatever greens and roots are on hand. I do enjoy exploring the farmers’ markets, but also looking for tasty bargains at Grocery Outlet. Someone asked me the other day if cooking from the farm box was a challenge: it is a challenge because of the seasonal repetition of ingredients, the unexpected quantities, the odd surprises (remember the chicory greens?).
This is so lovely! There is a cozy familiarity in reading because for one, our produce is similar since we’re both in northern California. And two, I am reminded of my mother’s childhood in rural Oregon, raised by grandparents who kept a two acre farm and a dairy cow and chickens because that’s just how it was done.
Thank you, Kimberley. Be sure to visit Celia’s blog (thekitchensgarden) if you haven’t yet for stories and photos of a current endeavor of sustainable farming.
You brought back many fond childhood thoughts about hand picking our own strawberries. Of course that was before the time of organic but they were certainly fresh and still warm on the vine under the sun. Love your recipe and will have to make some soon to fill that void of childhood memories.
Where did you pick strawberries, Bam? I’ve only picked blackberries and a few raspberries here in California. If you picked them wild, they most certainly were organically grown. I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
This is SO making me crave strawberry shortcake!
Well, ’tis the season. You can always make the biscuit healthier or try coconut cream.
I love your painting Sharyn. It’s brilliant to take a step back and think about where our food comes from. Thanks so much for the beautiful descriptions and the wonderful reminder
Thank you, Lauren. I think about where food comes from all the time in my quest to eat better food.
It’s incredible, when you think about it, the amount of work which has gone into not just producing the raw ingredients, but the packaging, shipping, marketing and so forth which we all take for granted so often as we’re measuring out x grams of flour and so forth.
Lovely post Sharyn, culminating in a lovely dish – I love strawberry shortcake 😀
Thank you, Charles. I think of strawberry shortcake as the best food the spring has to offer.
I love strawberry shortcake! I’m going to bookmark your recipe to refer back to when strawberries are in season here!