Dessert for dinner

When my friends Marilyn and Sandy arrived for dinner last night, they were talking about a text I’d sent them earlier in the day, saying that we were going to have something for dinner that

a) I was positive they’d never had for dinner, and which

b) I was equally positive they’d love.

Coming up my porch steps, Marilyn said, “Are we having strawberry shortcake for dinner?” We were. And I’m serving it again tonight when my dad comes over to dinner. Here he is enjoying dessert for dinner on my porch last year. Lookit that GRIN!

Florida and California are deservedly covered in glory for providing much of the nation’s produce, but I’m here to tell you that you can put our gorgeous, juicy Ohio strawberries up against strawberries from any other state and not find them wanting.

Sadly, you can’t count wee mock strawberries — which grow in little patches near my house — as delicious. You would think that being wild and free and thus just as Mother Nature intended, they would be top-notch. In fact, they are flavorless, tasting neither of strawberries nor indeed of anything even a little bit sweet. They are, however, very pretty and I’m sure good food for the wild things in our woods.

I don’t trouble myself to buy strawberries at any time of year other than this. The strawberries you find out there year-round are flavorless, weirdly textured and bred for looks and sturdiness during travel, rather than eating. They are like the fruit equivalent of a dependable valise. Show me the finest suitcase or duffel bag in all the land and though I might admire it for traveling purposes, I would not be eager to see it on a plate in front of me.

When my kids were tiny tots, I got in the habit of serving nothing but homemade strawberry shortcake for dinner at least one (and sometimes two) nights each June. Having dessert for dinner is always a treat, and when that dessert is composed entirely of fresh, ripe, local strawberries, homemade buttermilk biscuits and homemade vanilla whipped cream, it’s hard to go wrong.

We would head out to our local produce stand every single day during the last two or three weeks of June and on the way there, I would put on my local huckster cap and ask, “When local strawberries are available, when do we buy them?”

Dulled in the backseat by my ongoing “buy local” speechifying, my kids would stare out their respective car windows and intone, “Every day.”

“Even if they’re expensive?”

“Even if they’re expensive, Mama! Staaaahp!”

If I headed further down this politically correct produce path, they would at some point stop answering just to be contrary, but you get the point.

Let me pause here a moment to decry even the existence of the spongey, orangey disks you’ll find at most supermarkets (and even some farmer’s markets) placed next to the strawberries. The visual suggestion is that you — yes, you — have it within your power to have strawberry shortcake that very evening.

This unnatural proximity suggests that the aforementioned disks are to serve as the shortcake portion of the dessert. These items first of all aren’t short (an ancient term meaning chockful of shortening — butter, lard, what have you). Secondly, they are a factory-manufactured spongecake of unnatural color and non-existent flavor other than sweetness.

This may be some sort of dessert, but it’s not shortcake. You are encouraged to turn resolutely on your heel and walk away from these disks, lest folks around you take you for the kind of simpleton who would consort with lesser ingredients.

Below is my tried-and-true-for-decades recipe for flaky buttermilk biscuits. Meanwhile, making homemade vanilla whipped cream is simplicity itself. Believe me when I tell you that Cool Whip is not the answer you’re seeking. What’s required in terms of equipment is a hand mixer or stand mixer. Then you’ll need a cup or two of heavy or whipping cream, depending on how many guests you’re serving, a few Tablespoons of granulated sugar (don’t use powdered) and perhaps three or four minutes of time.

Whip the cream on the highest possible speed until it’s increased somewhat in volume. Add the sugar a little at a time as you go for another minute or two til it’s at least doubled in volume, taste, adjust the sugar, throw in some vanilla paste, beat again briefly and serve. LICK THAT BEATER. Don’t offer it to anyone else, that baby is yours.

These biscuits are superb under any circumstances. To make strawberry shortcake, make these and the vanilla whipped cream, chop up a whole mess o’ fresh, ripe, local strawberries. Then you’ll layer biscuits, then whipped cream, then berries on a plate. Or in a gigantic bowl, because serving size is entirely up to you and I won’t tell.

I like to serve this on my beautiful Wedgwood “Strawberry & Vine” porcelain because: how apt!

William Butler wrote, “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.” How could you say such a manifestly true thing any better than that?

Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

Makes 16 to 18 biscuits

The loftiness of these biscuits comes from three things: using frozen (instead of just chilled) butter; using the classic rough puff pastry folding technique; and baking the biscuits on a wire rack (allowing hot air to circulate under them) instead of putting them directly on the surface of the baking sheet.

Most people are fine with one or two biscuits if you’re serving these alongside a meal. You can allow two or three per person if these are the sole offering at breakfast. Serve with honey and jam and whatever else suits you.

5 cups (20 ozs.) all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2½ teaspoons coarse sea salt or kosher salt

2 sticks (½ lb.) frozen unsalted butter

1¼ to 1½ cups well-shaken buttermilk, very cold

1) Set the oven rack at the upper middle level and turn on the oven to 475^o. Lightly grease a cookie cooling rack, set into a large rimmed sheet pan and set aside. (Some of the butter melts out, and you don’t want that dripping off a rimless pan into your oven).

2) Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Grate the butter and stir into the dry ingredients to coat. Be sure to scoop up the flour from the bottom of the bowl as you briefly stir.

3) With a spatula or big spoon, incorporate just enough buttermilk into the dry ingredients so that the dough mostly holds together when you pick up and squeeze a small handful. You may not need to use all the buttermilk. Depend firmly on the “small handful squeeze” test, in which the indentations of your fingers will show and the dough will hold together.

4) Turn biscuit dough onto a lightly floured counter and press it out into a rectangle about the size of a sheet of paper (8½” by 11”). It will be a big, shaggy mess at first. There will be lots of stray flour and bits and pieces that seem as though they won’t get incorporated, but just pick these up and pat them into the dough.

5) Work fairly quickly during this step. Pick up the short end nearest you and fold it partly upwards, as though you’re starting to fold a letter in thirds — bear with me, Ye Young Folk who’ve never folded or even written a letter — just think of the dough in thirds. Repeat with the other short end. Press down on this all over until you again have a rectangle roughly 8½” by 11”.

6) Repeat this process — a rough puff pastry technique — six or eight times until you end up with a final rectangle about 8½” by 11” in size. By this time, the bits and pieces will be mostly all well-incorporated. If you need to wait a bit before baking, you can let the dough rest in the fridge for up to one day — but this isn’t strictly necessary.

7) Cover a jelly roll or large rimmed sheet pan with wire cookie-cooling rack and set aside (some of the butter melts out, and you don’t want that dripping off a rimless pan into your oven).

8) With a sharp knife or biscuit cutter, cut the dough into 16 to 18 biscuits, depending on how big you want them. Place biscuits evenly over the surface of the wire rack (this helps the biscuits puff better by letting the hot air move freely underneath them).

9) Bake biscuits on upper middle oven rack at 475^o for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they are quite puffed and deep golden. Remove from heat and serve.

Storage

These are best served immediately. The raw dough can also be sliced into biscuits, placed on parchment or waxed paper, frozen for a couple of hours until very firm, and then stored in an airtight container in the freezer for a few months. If baking frozen biscuits, set them out at room temperature while as you’re pre-heating the oven (about 20 minutes), and then bake a few minutes longer.