I haven't been back for years. Things like life and money just always seemed to get in the way.
It was a priority for me to see my family this year so with the help from my parents we booked tickets for the end of July.
I know a lady from South Africa who's husband gets upset when she refers to SA as home. Which in turn upsets her that he doesn't understand.
I understand.
I thought maybe after so many years that I would stop calling America home, but I haven't yet. I call England my home too, two homes are better then one they always say.
Well, I'm sure someone has said that somewhere? And if they haven't then I have!
I am looking forward to being home, but I still have life to live before then so I've not packed my bags just yet!
There will be a lot of visiting, but a lot of down time as I am going for 5 weeks! I will be posting a few posts before I go and hopefully be posting while I'm there, sharing with all of you what I'm getting up too!
In the meantime I have a few classic American desserts and bakes to share with you among other things.
I decided I wanted to make Strawberry Shortcake when I found myself smelling strawberries at the store with my oldest little person. While I was smelling freshly baked shortcake and sweet whipped cream she was smelling strawberries and nothing else.
I made sure we got two packages. I made Strawberry Shortcakes and her and her sister ate 400g worth of strawberries in one sitting.
We limit their in take of strawberries so it doesn't become a serious problem in their adulthood. I'm lying we let them eat as many as we can afford!
To me Strawberry Shortcake is a classic dessert and perfect way to highlight fresh strawberries. Plus it gave me an excuse to use my Wilton pan I have only used one other time. This is some seriously good dessert!
Strawberry Shortcakes:
strawberries
400g strawberries
50g sugar
Mix the sliced strawberries with the sugar in a bowl and cover and leaver until ready to use. We want the strawberries to be nice and juicy!
shortcake
300g plain flour
100g sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
114g butter, chilled
140ml milk
1 large egg
Heat the oven to 190C grease the dessert shell tin by Wilton or a 8inch/20cm round pan, with a cake release spray and lightly dust with flour, tap out excess flour.
Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together before adding the butter in cubes. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it looks like course crumbs. If you have a pastry blender tool thing then use that.
Fold in the milk and egg until just combined.
Use heaped table spoons to fill the indents in the dessert shell tin and gently press down and smooth with the back of the spoon. Or spoon into the cake pan and smooth down as much as possible. The batter is a little sticky.
Bake for 25-30 minutes if using the dessert shell, but 30-35 minutes if in the cake pan. The skewer test should be used to make sure it's cooked all the way through. Cool in the tin/pan for at least 10 minutes before turn out on a plate.
to serve
150ml whipping cream
1 tsp caster sugar
Whip the cream and sugar together until it holds it's shape. Then I drizzle some of the strawberry juice on the cake(s) to soak in a little before adding strawberries, whipped cream to taste!
Then eat! Ice cream would also be great in these!
notes: My post on home being where the heart is! The only other time I used this pan was for this post. Recipe roughly adapted from a Betty Crocker cookbook.
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