I need strawberry desserts

June 9, 2013 9:44 AM

Yesterday we went strawberry picking and ended up with nearly 10 lbs of ripe juicy berries. I need your most decadent delicious strawberry desserts.

The strawberry ice cream has already been made. I have a box of puff pastry that may be donated to the cause. Chocolate and nuts are welcome, but the dessert must have intense strawberry flavor. There are only two people in the household so small scale recipes are excellent, also if that means I can try a different dessert each night.
Lastly a bonus question: I have a recipe to make a strawberry trifle which ends up with half a dozen unused egg whites. What is something I can make that would use them up at the time.

posted by florencetnoa to Food & Drink (28 answers total)

For the egg whites you could do strawberry meringues or strawberry angel food cake.
posted by elizardbits at 9:50 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

The last time I found myself in your delicious predicament, I made strawberry gelato. (Of course, this involves having an ice cream maker but that is a fun investment too, especially if you have access to a lot of nice fresh fruit.)

1/2 lb fresh strawberries (that's like uhh 1.5 cups or so, if tightly packed)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup cold water
3/4 cup cold heavy whipping cream
Splash or three of lemon juice
1-2 tbsp vodka to keep it from freezing too hard
Several splashes of Rose Syrup (Sirop de Rose, not rose water.)

Cut up strawberries, combine all ingredients, blend until smooth, follow your ice cream maker instructions. I'm not even a fan of strawberry ice cream and this was amazing. The rose syrup adds this lovely floral fragrance to the end product. I guess if you left some coarsely-chopped strawberries and added them to the blended mix, you would end up with actual strawberry chunks, too. Wow, I should have thought of that at the time.
posted by vetala at 9:58 AM on June 9, 2013

Slice a bunch of strawberries, sprinkle them with sugar, and leave them in a sealed container in the fridge for as long as you can stand it, a coupla days at least. I guess you could use it as a topping, but I usually just ate 'em straight out the container.
posted by carsonb at 10:00 AM on June 9, 2013

Do you like dessert-y cocktails? How about strawberry vodka?

For the egg whites, I agree with elizardbits: pavlova.
posted by spec80 at 10:01 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Strawberry shortcake of course! Hull and slice up some strawberries and give them some sugar to steep in for a day or two in the fridge. Serve with your puff pastry and "cream" made from plain greek yogurt/agave nectar/vanilla. (Also you can skip the sugar and the puff pastry and just have strawberries and cream.)

Other ideas: freeze them for smoothies and daquiries.
posted by headnsouth at 10:01 AM on June 9, 2013

Fresh strawberry tarts.
posted by loveyallaround at 10:13 AM on June 9, 2013

Fruit leather. Alcoholic fruit leather could be fun, too. Mmmmm.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 10:14 AM on June 9, 2013

Tequila por mi amante. Charles H. Baker, Gentleman's Companion, 1939.
posted by kathryn at 10:23 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Just in case you don't get enough recipes, Alton Brown has an excellent method for freezing strawberries: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/frozen-strawberries-recipe/reviews/index.html (requires a log in, just use bugmenot)
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 10:26 AM on June 9, 2013

Strawberry pâte de fruit -- I haven't made that recipe, but I have worked with the raspberry and peach recipes from the same recipe author with (delicious) success. A bit of work, but well worth it, and it will definitely scratch the itch for 'intense strawberry flavour.' And it will keep -- the process is more or less turning to turn the fruit into a very thick jam/jelly.
posted by kmennie at 10:26 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

For the eggs whites and strawberries at once, make an angel food cake that is served with lightly macerated strawberries - they form a light syrup and you can flavor it a tiny bit with lemon juice or orange blossom water if you want, but you don't have to, it'll be amazing.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:32 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would also make jam, because homemade strawberry jam is my very favorite and if you do it yourself you control the level of cooking. I like them slightly overcooked and caramelly.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:33 AM on June 9, 2013

Sorry if this isn't on-point enough, but I highly recommend you freeze some and forget about them for six months. Strawberries on waffles now is fantastic; strawberries on waffles in January might actually save your sanity.
posted by selfnoise at 10:33 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

You can macerate cut strawberries in triple sec or Grand Marnier, sugar and, optionally, orange peel.

Then you whip up some sweet whipped cream and mix it gently together and put it in a glass and garnish it with a cluster of mint leaves.

This is the one thing I know to do with strawberries, but it's pretty killer, especially if you have hours and hours to let the strawberries sit in the Grand Marnier. You could probably use many other intensely flavored fruity liquors if you had something else lying around.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 10:34 AM on June 9, 2013

This strawberry balsamic galette is delicious.
posted by Fig at 10:46 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

angel food cake that is served with lightly macerated strawberries

We did this last night. Balsamic vinegar, sugar, a little bit of mint.
posted by kindall at 10:48 AM on June 9, 2013

You're asking for desserts, I know, I know...but you have so many you can sneak some into a salad or two :-)
posted by travelwithcats at 10:50 AM on June 9, 2013

NE summertime treat: dip strawberries in sour cream, then in brown sugar. Stuff into face.
posted by theredpen at 10:55 AM on June 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

I made a strawberry pie a couple of weeks ago that was quite simple and delicious.
posted by Jacob G at 11:09 AM on June 9, 2013

Strawberry shortcakes -- wash the strawberries, don't dry them fully, slice and mix with sugar, use biscuits and whipped cream -- are the best. A strawberry pie much like Jacob G's is fantastic, as is a strawberry tart with custard (though this will leave you more egg whites).

You can make a nice white cake with egg whites and cover that with the strawberries in sugar that you've made.

You should also buy some excellent chocolate and make chocolate covered strawberries.

I have somewhere the recipe to an excellent strawberry rhubarb cake, though it's not quite as intensely strawberry flavoured as a pie.
posted by jeather at 11:15 AM on June 9, 2013

We're planning on homemade jam when the season starts here. Freezer jam is less equipment-intensive and I even like it a little better (especially in February, as others have pointed out.)
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:31 AM on June 9, 2013

Grandmother's strawberry pie! Use sliced fresh strawberries for the filling, and either fresh or frozen stewed strawberries (plus a lot of sugar) poured around them to fill the gaps. You can make a butter crust, or buy a crust from Trader Joe's (cheap, frozen, tastes really good) and bake it separately. Put sliced strawberries in, pour stewed berries around it, put it in the fridge to set for a couple hours. Make some whipped cream just before! A quick googling yields only recipes that use strawberry Jello instead of stewed (like this one), but there are better recipes out there!
posted by tapir-whorf at 12:26 PM on June 9, 2013

This is one of my favourite cakes of all time: strawberry summer cake. Super easy, really delicious, and keeps well for a few days.

And bonus: The ratio of fruit to cake is more pie-like than cake-like. Plus, all the ingredients are ones you probably always have.
posted by guster4lovers at 12:51 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Damn, I didn't this was possible but I might now need more strawberries!
posted by florencetnoa at 1:05 PM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

I made these delicious mixed berry pavlovas with only strawberries a few weeks ago. Instead of the raspberry sauce, puree some strawberries in a blender or food processor with a little bit of water, then force through a sieve. Put strawberries on top of the assembled pavlova. Since you only have two people, make 4-6 individual serving size pavlovas instead of one big one; they'll keep for a few days unassembled.
posted by asphericalcow at 6:01 PM on June 9, 2013

2nding - pavlova, strawberry daiquiris and/or margaritas, fresh strawberry pie, strawberry shortcake. The shortcake recipe on the Bisquick box is my favorite. Sliced, sugared strawberries will give off a lot of juice, making their own syrup, which soaks into the biscuit and it tastes so good with the berries and whipped cream.

Cleaned, hulled strawberries with a dip made from plain yogurt and dark brown sugar(to taste) is one of my go-to desserts.
posted by theora55 at 6:32 PM on June 9, 2013

The absolute most decadent and delicious dip for strawberries, which I just recalled this morning and had to text my mother to confirm, is blended cream cheese and marshmallow cream. I think she used to just use a block of cream cheese and maybe half a jar (or more?) of marshmallow cream. Unf. So good.
posted by carsonb at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just had the most amazing strawberry dessert at Alinea. It had fresh strawberries, freeze-dried strawberries, some interesting crunchy bits (not really sure what they were), pine nuts, kefir, and some wood sorrel on the side (you can probably pick some locally; it's a weed).
This is roughly what it looked like:
http://beenthereeatenthat.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Alinea-strawberry.jpg

And, as you can see, the presentation was beautiful but not fussy.
posted by novalis_dt at 7:51 PM on June 10, 2013