Tag Archives: Strawberries

Strawberry cheesecake pops

5 Jul

Cake pops are all the rage. This version is frozen and features all the classic ingredients of cheesecake.

Yes, I am officially jumping on the cake pop wagon with this oh-so-cute recipe! Have you heard the buzz about cake pops? Apparently, they are the new cupcakes. But didn’t we hear that about whoopie pies as well? In any event, these are delicious and adorable, in addition to being COLD, which is great for the summer BBQ theme I seem to be stuck on these days. Hey, we get 9 months of winter, might as well make the most of the sunny months, right?

Boy, did my brother-in-law and Mat get a laugh out of me taking 15 minutes to set up this picture...

I have my aunt Lise and my cousin Karianne to thank for this recipe. They made it for our family BBQ and I fell in love with them! Granted, it was embarrassing to pull out my camera and spend 15 minutes trying to get the perfect shot of my food with my uncles, cousins and great-aunt watching… But I think it was worth it to share these with you.

Recipe :
Source: Adapted from Châtelaine, July 2011 (translated from French).
Yield: 12 pops

3/4 cups of coarse graham cracker crumbs
1 cup of heavy whipping cream (35%)
1/2 package of cream cheese (125 g) at room temperature
1/4 cup of honey
1 tbsp of lime juice
2 cups of strawberry slices (or fresh, pitted cherries – which is what the original recipe calls for)
12 small paper cups (80 ml or 1/3 cup in size – you can find these at Jean Coutu)
12 popsicle sticks

Place the paper cups on a baking sheet. Put 1/2 a tsp of graham crumbs in the bottom of each cup.

In a medium size bowl, whip cream for about two minutes or until soft peaks form. In another bowl, whip cream cheese for about tw minutes until it becomes fluffy. Gradually add the honey to the cream cheese while continuing to whip until you get a smooth texture. Incorporate lime juice and strawberries. Gently fold the whip cream and remaining graham crumbs into the cheese mixture until swirls appear.

Fill the paper cups and insert popsicle sticks. Place in freezer for 3 and a half hours or until frozen. To remove pops from the cups, push gently from the bottom.

Strawberry shortcakes

13 Jun

The perfect summer dessert

I LOVE strawberry shortcakes. Who doesn’t? But these go way back for me. When I was just a kid, my grandmother used to make them for the whole family on those really hot mid-summer days without air conditioning. I remember the sweet and juicy strawberries, the fluffy freshly whipped cream and flaky tea biscuits. They’ve remained on my favourite desserts list ever since. And the beauty is, they are so easy to make.

Miniature version with mint added to the strawberries.

I made miniature shortcakes with freshly chopped mint in the strawberry mix for a dinner at a friend’s place this past weekend. Other “suped-up” versions I’ve thought of (but haven’t made yet) include adding vanilla bean to the whip cream, pink peppercorns to the strawberries or lemon zest to the biscuits. You get the idea – lots of room for creativity. This is the perfect time to try out this dessert – Quebec strawberries are finally available!

Recipe:
Makes about 4 shortcakes
1 or 2 medium baskets of strawberries
1 250 ml container of 35% cream
A few tablespoons of sugar
4 tea biscuits
For the biscuits: I used a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com, but the Bisquick mix is just fine! If you make them from scratch, do not roll out the dough very much at all. If you can, just flatten the ball of dough with your hands. Otherwise, they’ll end up a little too “short”, like mine. They were delicious just the same and I just used two instead of breaking one up.

Cut the strawberries into slices and mix with about 1 tbsp of sugar. Whip the cream, adding about two tbsp of sugar or to your taste. Tip: I place a metal bowl and beaters in the freezer to make it easier to whip the cream. Cut a tea biscuit in half, place a few spoonfuls of whip cream on bottom half. Add strawberries and top half of biscuit and finish off with more cream. Voilà!

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