Make sweet treats with strawberries
By Patrick Mooney Special to The Acorn

Wild for strawberries

Ventura is strawberry country, and May is strawberry season. You'll find fresh strawberries at supermarkets, farmers' markets and roadside stands. Strawberries are so inexpensive right now that you'll probably be tempted to bring home a flat of berries.

Once you get the strawberries home you may be wondering what to do with them. Freezing is an easy way to preserve them, and there are two basic methods to freezing strawberries.

You can just wash them, dry them, cut off the caps and then spread them out on a cookie sheet. Place the strawberries in your freezer overnight. The next day, put the frozen strawberries in a zip-top bag and store them in the freezer.

The method I like best is to macerate them and then freeze them.

Frozen macerated berries

4 pints strawberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Place the water and sugar into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove from heat and let cool.

Wash and dry the strawberries and cut off the caps. Slice the strawberries rather thin, place in a bowl and add the room-temperature syrup.

Mix well.

Let the strawberries rest for 20 to 30 minutes.

Pour the berries into a zip-top bag, leaving 2 inches of space at the top. Seal the bag and freeze.

However, if you want to use your strawberries right away, you can make strawberry shortcakes.

Strawberry shortcake

For the filling and topping:
1½ pints fresh or frozen strawber
ries
¼ cup sugar (if not using macer
ated strawberries)
½ cup heavy or whipping cream
1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
For the cake part:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups heavy cream plus extra for brushing the tops of biscuits

If you are using the fresh strawberries, wash and dry them, cut off the caps and slice. Toss them in a bowl with ¼ cup of sugar and let them rest for an hour.

In another bowl, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Add the confectioners' sugar and the vanilla extract. Continue whisking the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Cover the whipped cream and refrigerate until needed.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, 3 tablespoons sugar and salt.

Add 1¼ cups cream and mix with a spatula or spoon until a dough forms. Place the dough on a floured surface and gently knead the dough about seven times. Roll the dough out to ½ inch thick.

Using a floured 2½-inch round cutter, cut out as many biscuits as possible. Reform the dough, roll it out again and cut out more biscuits. Recipe should yield about 10 biscuits.

Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet that has a piece of parchment paper on it. Brush the tops of the biscuits with cream, then bake for 15 minutes.

Let the biscuits cool on a rack.

When cool, split four of the biscuits in half horizontally. Place one biscuit bottom on a plate and top with ½ cup strawberries and ¼ cup whipped cream. Place the biscuit top on the whipped cream. Repeat for the other three shortcakes. Serve with the remaining whipped cream, and enjoy!