Cornmeal Cake with Balsamic Strawberries

Happy (belated) Anniversary to me!  This was the cake Alex baked for our anniversary.  I had some wonderful fresh strawberries from the farmers' market that I wanted to bake something with.  I thought about strawberry shortcake, but we have made those several times before.  I was very tempted by this Almond-Oat Strawberry Shortcake, but I wanted to make something new and (more) different.  Then I remembered that awhile back I found a few recipes for cornmeal cakes and cornmeal pound cakes online.  So I took pieces and ideas from a number of recipes to come up with this recipe.  And then I told Alex to make it for me.  Haha.  Thanks hon!  I was originally planning on whipping up some mascarpone with a little vanilla extract to serve with the cake and the macerated strawberries, but I got lazy and decided not to make the additional trip to the grocery store.  I wish I had because the creaminess of the mascarpone would have been wonderful with the cake and berries.  Oh well.  The cake was wonderfully light and not too sweet, which meant that I ate it for breakfast as well as dessert (with and without strawberries).  The texture was somewhat similar to a sponge cake or angel food cake - it was firm and fluffy, rather than crumbly and moist, but not too moist.  It isn't rich and dense like a slice of chocolate cake or carrot cake.  It was a lovely cake with a hint of citrus and a sweet crunchy topping of turbinado sugar.  I love the addition of turbinado sugar on scones, shortcakes and this cake.  It is such a wonderful touch.

Recipe after the jump!

Rhubarb and Strawberry Compote with Fresh Mint

Rhubarb was one of the ingredients I had never experienced until I moved to NYC.  My first spring in NYC I noticed that it was on restaurant menus everywhere.  In the past few years I have made a few dishes with rhubarb (like this Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with Cardamom and Nutmeg) and I have a few others, including a cake, that I would like to try.  This compote served with vanilla ice cream was the dessert I served with our ribs, coleslaw and cornbread.  It was delicious with the vanilla ice cream.  I loved the slightly tart rhubarb with the strawberries and the fresh mint.  I think the fresh mint is what really made it.  If you like things a little less sweet, I would cut back on the sugar a little.  But a really nice dessert.  I think the compote would work really well on top of some angel food cake or Belgian waffles.  And I'm considering eating it tomorrow for breakfast on top of some Greek yogurt, because why the heck not?

Recipe after the jump!

Strawberry Shortcakes with Balsamic Vinegar

I came back from Maryland this weekend with about 5 pounds of strawberries and raspberries, which meant I immediately started thinking about what dishes I could cook or bake using some of those berries.  My first thought was some sort of rhubarb and berry crostada, tart or pie.  I also thought about making a compote, but we were out of rhubarb and I didn't feel like going to the store to get more.  So I settled on making some strawberry shortcakes because we had everything we needed in the fridge and there is really no dessert that brings to mind summer as much as strawberry shortcake.  And since it is now late June and over 80 degrees all week long, it seemed rather appropriate.  Rather than making our regular recipe (which I'm not sure I can call a regular recipe since we have only made it once before), I decided to make something a little different.  But since I am feeling generous, I will post both recipes down below!  I think that the biscuits in this new recipe are the perfect biscuits for shortcakes.  Thanks Bon Appetit!  They were really tender and had just the perfect amount of sweetness.  They were a little small, but I guess that's a good thing because they force you to eat a smaller portion.  Depending on whether we stick to a more traditional filling or not, I might add a little orange zest to the biscuits and a splash of Grand Marnier to the whipped cream.  That would be a fun minor variation on a classic strawberry shortcake recipe.  I thought that the balsamic vinegar-macerated strawberries were a nice touch, but I'm not sure that they were necessarily any better than your standard macerated strawberries.  I'm actually thinking about eating them on top of some Greek yogurt tomorrow for breakfast.  But who am I kidding?  If I'm going to eat more berries for breakfast, I am going to eat another whole shortcake.  Yum!   

Recipes after the jump!