Strawberry Field of Dreams with Sabayon

Strawberry season is in flux and as I trial variations of strawberry hand pies with pre-made puff pastry to attempting pastry dough from scratch, here's a simple strawberry recipe to satisfy a late night dessert craving until I find a presentable hand pie recipe to share. 

I've tried a few version of sabayon and of course, the version with a dash of champagne/moscato or sweet marsala is best, but those are ingredients I don't normally have in my pantry or don't want to open a new bottle of wine just to use a few dashes. For those nights where you simply crave a good, refreshing dessert on a whim, this is it. Takes about 10 minutes to prepare. 

Ingredients

Strawberries (as much as you want/don't want)

2 egg yolks

1/8 cup of sugar

Juice from 1/2 of lemon

1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Wash and slice the strawberries to the size of your liking. Place in individual serving bowls. Seriously, any bowl will work but I like to put these in clear glass so I can watch the sabayon slowly seep down the sides to cover each of the strawberries before I happily consume the entire contents. It's the little things that make you smile each day, right?

2. Simmer about a cup of water in a pot and with a bowl large enough to put on top without touching the water, put the egg yolks and sugar. You can whisk by hand but I brought out my hand mixer and beat the egg/sugar mixture until creamy/silky and is a pale yellow color. Take off heat. With the same hand mixer and in another bowl, beat the heavy cream until it turns into whipped cream.

*Variation. If you do happen to have moscato or champagne around, mix the sugar with the wine first and then add the egg yolk before putting over the double boiler.

3. Gently fold the two together. Add in the squeeze of lemon juice. Dollop a few spoonfuls over the strawberries. Eat it right away!

*Variation. You can also add in a dash of vanilla extract but I think it's too overpowering, if you can believe it. I would, though, recommend adding a bit of lemon zest to up that flavor a bit.

Smile for Breakfast: Strawberry Nutella Tarts

Remember when I had several pounds of strawberries?  Well, here is another recipe to use up a few more strawberries you have laying around.  These don't take many berries - probably about 1.5 strawberries for each tart but are so simple and quick to make. What is great is that you can freeze each one if you don't want them right away. They are perfect for breakfast if you have 25 minutes for them to bake - or an afternoon snack!

Nutella is golden. I love love love nutella. Did I mention that I love nutella?  I have a few bananas in the freezer, and I think I'll be making some banana and nutella tarts soon.

Strawberry Nutella Tarts

(Makes 9 tarts) 

1 lb strawberries, sliced 

Nutella spread (however much you need)

2 puff pastry sheets (can be found in the frozen pastry section of the grocery store)

3 tbsp sugar

1. Thoroughly wash the strawberries. Cut the stem out and slice. 

2. Unroll the puff pastry sheet.  Cut into 9 equal squares/rectangles.  For half of the squares, spread a good serving of nutella leaving a clean edge. 

 

3. Stack a few slices of strawberries on top. You can sprinkle sugar on the strawberries if you like it super sweet, but for me, the nutella is sweet enough for the tart.

  

4.  Take the un-nutella squares and put on top of the strawberries. Using your finger, make sure that the edges are all sealed. I used a fork to create a fun edging around each tart. Sprinkle sugar on top of each one and using a toothpick, poke a few holes on the top of each tart.

  

5. I put these on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and tossed them in the freezer. Once frozen, I was able to easily bag several in one bag without the worry of them sticking to each other.  When you are ready to eat, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Put in a pan and cook for at least 25 minutes. As you can see below, I didn't do a very good job about sealing the edges and lost a little bit of nutella.

Party In Your Mouth: Strawberry Cupcakes

I can't resist the overwhelmingly large containers of fresh fruit at Costco. With strawberry season in full force, how can you resist the 8lb container? Not me! However, I can only snack on so many strawberries - plain, with a little sugar sprinkled on top or dipped in nutella - before the freshness starts to decline. 

I found some very odd, unique takes to dishes using strawberries, such as this strawberry risotto. Not tempting enough to make but still very interesting indeed.  Maybe one day I will venture out and try this....maybe. 

I had a cupcake craving several weeks ago and ended up going to the grocery store to buy some.  They weren't great and didn't satisfy my craving one bit.  This was my opportunity and hooray, it was great!  Using fresh strawberries definitely added an additional level of flavor - the bites of baked strawberries in the cupcakes with the combination of the fresh strawberries in the frosting worked well together.  I don't like overly sweet cupcakes so these cupcakes were perfect. If you like sweeter cupcakes, you can add more sugar - maybe 1/2 cup more or added more sugar to the frosting.  I also made a small batch of mango cupcakes and they were just as good. They made the batter a little more moist and you can probably cut down on the sugar as the mangos I had were incredibly sweet.  Sorry, no pictures of the mango cupcakes.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Makes approximately 36 cupcakes

1 3/4 sticks of unsalted butter

1.5 cups sugar
5 eggs
Zest from two lemons
1 cup sour cream
3 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
2.5 cups diced strawberries

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Make sure your butter is room temperature. I like to take mine out at least a half day in advance so it is perfectly creamy when you mix. In your mixer, cream butter and sugar on high for about 2 minute.  

3. For the eggs, I like to bring them out about an hour prior to baking.  Crack into a bowl to make sure you don’t get a bad egg in your batter or any shells.  Add one egg at a time to the sugar butter mixture while it is on medium high. Make sure to stop and scrape down the sides to make sure it is evenly mixed.  

Don't worry if it looks a little curdled. Keep mixing and it will smooth out.  

4. Add the sour cream and vanilla.  You can cut down on the vanilla but I have a tendency to almost always double the amount because I love the hint of flavor it provides. Let this mix on medium slow.  

5. Next, add the lemon zest.  

6. In another bowl, mix together the cake flour, salt and baking soda. You can use unbleached flour if you do not have cake flour. With cake flour, I find that it is just a little lighter and you end up coming out with less dense cupcakes. Add the flour to the mixer in three portions – making sure to turn off the mixture when you add or you’ll have a nice sprinkle of flour on your face and clothes.  

7. Add in the diced strawberries with a spatula and/or fork.

8. With your cupcake pan all nice and lined, use an ice cream scoop and fill each cupcake liner about 3/4th of the way.  

 (I made mini cupcakes too.)

9. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I put my timer at 18 minutes just in case your oven cooks a little faster. My total time in the oven was 22 minutes.

Meringue cupcake frosting

2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup sugar
1 stick butter
1 cup diced strawberries

1. With a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water on the stove, beat the egg whites and sugar with a hand mixer until it doubles in size and becomes a little frothy.  You want to make sure the sugar is dissolved.  

2. Pour the mixture into your electric mixer with a whisk attachment (you can probably still use the hand mixer if you’d like) and set it on medium high. Start adding the butter 1 tbsp at a time until it becomes light and creamy. Add in the vanilla extract. 

3. With a spatula, fold in the strawberries into the frosting mixture.  Spread a little bit onto each cupcake and enjoy!