Chocolate Berry Shortcakes

This recipe is from an English girl I worked with some years ago and she was a wonderful cook.  These large shortcakes can be formed into 8 smaller shortcakes if desired as they make a large biscuit, quite enough for 2 if you want to fix one and share. It is wonderful with raspberries, strawberries, or a mix of your choosing.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and prepare cookie sheets with parchment or lightly grease the pan.





4 T unsweetened cocoa powder
1 c all purpose flour
4 T granulated sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
4 T cold butter cut into dice size pieces
8 T heavy cream
 3 c berries
4 T sugar or to taste
2 T Framboise, or to taste optional
2/3 c well chilled cream
powdered sugar to sprinkle shortcakes if desired

Make the shortcakes:  Into a bowl sift together the first 5 ingredients.  Add the butter and blend with a pastry cutter or fork until it resembles coarse meal.  Add the cream and stir with a fork until it forms a dough.  Divide the dough into fourths and arrange each portion into a mound on the baking sheet.  Bake in the center of the oven for 12 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool on rack.

In a medium non-reactive bowl mash half the berries, add sugar and Framboise and stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Add the remaining berries.  In another bowl beat the cream until it holds soft peaks.
Top the biscuit with berries and the berries with cream to you liking.

Incredible Strawberry Cake

This is a recipe from my dear friend Sally and it is the most amazing cake!!  The strawberry fragrance is wonderful and the depth of the strawberry taste surprised me.  I have made it every spring since she gave it to me and I often make it for friends who are lovers of strawberries.  This time I made it into cupcakes to take to a pitch-in dinner.

1 yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1 c oil
3 T flour
1 pint of cut up strawberries

Prepare pan with butter and flour or use cupcake papers if making cupcakes.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix the cake mix, eggs, oil, and flour together till creamy and well blended then add the strawberries.
Bake in preheated oven 30-40 minutes depending on the oven.  Reduce time for cupcakes, test with a toothpick to check if done.

Icing:
1 stick butter or margarine softened
1 box powdered sugar (1pound)
1/2 c chopped strawberries

Beat altogether with electric mixer and frost cake.

All things Strawberry

After making 14 pints of strawberry jam I put a few pints in the freezer for the winter.  Strawberries are really easy to freeze and are useful and tasty.  I just slice or quarter the berries and for a pint I added 2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar, sealed them in a freezer container and that was that.