Strawberry Pie

I'm jumping the gun a little bit, but . . .

It's PIIIIEEEEE!

Tonight I made Shirley O. Corriher's fresh strawberry pie recipe from Bakewise. It's only the second pie I've ever made, and the first I've ever made unsupervised. It was pretty easy to make, though the upside-down crust baking method Corriher recommended made my pie look a little rough around the edges. The filling, though, was super easy: put fresh strawberries in the crust; cook up a thick, jellied syrup for the filling; and stick it in the fridge. There's no second baking required!

I made the pie for my dad's birthday tomorrow. I've never been a big fan of pie, so I've never learned to make them, and I think he's suffered from the loss there many years! There were always cakes and cookies in the house, but the poor man couldn't get a slice of apple pie to save his life. But this is his year.

Dad, I hope it's fantastic when you cut into it tomorrow--this pie's for you!

Summertime . . .

and the living is hot. Like really hot. Like "Oh, good Lord, where's the ice bath?!" hot.

The first 100 degree day of summer is upon us here in Kansas. Instead of getting cranky about it as I sweat to death on my couch, I want to write about my favorite summer things. The power of positive thinking and all that.  ;)

Here's what I love about summer:

1. Produce, produce, produce. There's so much delicious fruit in grocery stores and at the farmers' market that I actually have to work to eat it all. It's fantastic: first come the strawberries, then the nectarines and peaches, then the melons, and, of course, there are always the apples to look forward to in the fall. And don't even get me started on the cucumbers and salad greens! Ooooo, the salad greens! (Okay, so I like food--can you tell?)
2. The smell of barbecue. I like the taste, too, but barbecue is so heavy that I prefer salads and hummus and veggie-based dishes in the summer. Ugh, who can handle a belly full of greasy brats and burgers when it's this hot? But the smell permeates my neighborhood as the college kids crack open beers and grill on their decks. All of downtown is rich with charcoal smoke, Frisbee games, and lawn chairs.
3. How cold things taste extra amazing. Ice cream. Popsicles. Frosted and dripping bottles of beer straight from a cooler. Enough said.
4. The lake. I haven't gone swimming this year, but I'm desperate to! I miss wasting a whole afternoon splashing around in Clinton Lake between rounds of laying out under the blistering sun. (Well sun screened, of course!) And it's weird, I know, but I love the smell of the lake--it's so rich, so fishy and dirty and musty and gloppy somehow. It smells alive. I like it much, much better than chlorine.
5. Music. There are silly summer hits on the radio and fantastic concerts in Kansas City every night of the week. I've only gone to one show so far this year, but I've passed up about four great ones due to time conflicts. The music industry (and the whole world, it seems) is so gloriously busy in summer!
6. Nighttime. For me, my least favorite thing about summer is that the heat makes it hard to get a good night's sleep (at least in my apartment!). But the upside is that everyone seems to stay up a little bit later to take advantage of the cool night air. Summer nights are great for parties, for camping, for movie marathons, and for reading late into the night. There's something truly wonderful about being up at 3:00 a.m. on a summer night to hear the cicadas singing in the cool, damp air, and watching the moon high and bright overhead.
7. The haze. I love how everything and everyone slows down when it's really hot. We have no choice in the matter: the air feels like molasses. It's hard to move, to breath, to even think. The promise of heat stroke makes everyone pant, sweat, and sprawl their way slowly through the daylight hours. It's a sort of forced laziness. You have time to hear the crickets creaking, to watch the lightning bugs flicker, to smell the damp grass when twilight comes. Summer may be the loudest season--full of bugs and animals, fireworks, outdoor festivals, and wind--but  it always feels like the quietest season to me. It asks me to feel the sweat and salt on my skin, to stop moving so far and so fast, to hear my own thoughts moving through my own head. 

Homemade Strawberry Cake

Ever since a recent lustful encounter with a boxed strawberry cake mix, I've been wanting to make a homemade strawberry cake. I wanted a recipe that incorporated fresh crushed strawberries and would pair well with fresh whipped cream frosting. Fortunately, this Fresh Strawberry Cake recipe from Recipezaar.com really fit the bill.

My strawberry cake!

The question is, is homemade strawberry cake really better than Duncan Hines's marvelous, monstrous, candy-flavored version? I mean, it's the tacky, bright-pink, sugary smoothness of it that's so appealing, right?

Mr. Hines's Strawberry Supreme.

The answer is yes and no. The box mix cake is extra moist and super fluffy and tastes just like a strawberry Skittle, so it's pretty much the best thing in the world. However, real strawberry cake is similarly moist, but it isn't so tender or so fluffy. With real fruit in the recipe, I don't think it's possible to obtain the same texture as a chiffon cake. And the homemade cake definitely isn't baby pink!

The naked strawberry cakes.

The cakes turned out to have a sugary, slightly dense texture, with an almost crispy crust; they were a little like a scone on the outside but were purely cake-like on the inside. They definitely tasted just like strawberries!

Crushed strawberries for the cake batter.

I had been wanting to make fresh whipped cream frosting for some time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it. I used strawberry puree (strawberries, a bit of sugar, and a dash of lemon juice) to take the frosting from plain to strawberry flavored.

The strawberry puree and fresh whipped cream frosting.

The pretty, petal-colored strawberry frosting.

The cut cake.

However, I ran out of frosting for my last cake round, so I used the strawberry glaze recipe that comes with the cake recipe. It was pretty tasty, too, though I didn't like it as well as the whipped cream frosting. The whipped cream was light and fresh and smooth and darn pretty. But the glaze looked chunky and *ahem* a little unappealing. Besides, even though it was delicious, it somehow made the cake taste more like a muffin than a proper cake.

The glazed cake.

But that just means I'm allowed to make this recipe in cupcake form and and eat it for breakfast, right?

A slice of the glazed cake.

I liked this recipe quite a bit, but I would like to find a chiffon version (if, indeed, that is possible with fresh fruit!). This cake was a touch heavy for me, even though it was wildly popular; pieces seemed to fly mysteriously from the platter every time I turned around! But it was a great way to deal with the vast amount of strawberries I usually buy each spring, futilely hoping that I can finish them before they start to go bad.

My favorite fruit.

Oh, and did I mention the best part of all? I suspect that all my frozen leftover strawberry puree will make some pretty fantastic margaritas come summer time! Hooray for buying in bulk!