Strawberries & Cream Cheese

Strawberry In true Pacific Northwest fashion, summer has come in the middle of April. Wait, I blinked. It’s gone again. Around here, clear, warm weather is like a somewhat crazy, noncommittal lover. He waltzes in when you least expect it and turns everything upside down. Just when you think you’ve adjusted, he drifts out the door and leaves you in the cold again.

To me, summer means more than heat and sunshine, of course. It means strawberries. Strawberry shortcake. Strawberry pie. Strawberries in the salad–fruit or otherwise. Move over winter squash, I’ve got some strawberries to devour.

My favorite simple way to turn strawberries into a dessert worthy of a fancy restaurant is to slice them one way or another, arrange them on shortcake biscuits, and drizzle them with my favorite cream cheese frosting. Ice cream works in a pinch, but cream cheese frosting is surprisingly easy to make.

Take 2 Tbsp cream cheese, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1 Tbsp butter, and beat into submission with an electric mixer. Add 1 Tbsp heavy cream or buttermilk and churn it until blended. If you must use something else, any kind of liquid will work, but I claim no responsibility if skim milk or the tears of innocent almonds don’t live up to your expectations. Some might appreciate a splash or lemon juice in with the cream. That’s it. With your ingredients at room temperature, this frosting takes about 5 minutes to prepare.

This recipe doubles, quintuples, or whatever-uples nicely.

Strawberries of the area beware.

What do you think? Please comment.

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Lee French lives in Olympia, WA, and is the author of several books, most notably the Maze Beset Trilogy, The Greatest Sin series (co-authored with Erik Kort), and assorted tales in her fantasy setting, Ilauris. She is an avid gamer and active member of the Myth-Weavers online RPG community, where she is known for her fondness for Angry Ninja Squirrels of Doom. In addition to spending much time there, she also trains year-round for the one-week of glorious madness that is RAGBRAI, has a nice flower garden with one dragon and absolutely no lawn gnomes, and tries in vain every year to grow vegetables that don’t get devoured by neighborhood wildlife.

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