Blackberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake

When I was young, my mother and I would go blackberry picking in McDade, Texas. 

We always went to the same farm, which was owned by a very small old woman who had puffy white hair. 

We would get there in the morning, wearing old clothes and wide-brimmed hats. 

My mother always wore gloves, because she has beautiful hands, and blackberry bushes are very thorny. 

We would pick blackberries for hours. 

It was hard work. Because the thorns tore up our hands, and because there were fire ants. 

We always got stung by fire ants. 

It was fun though: my brothers and I would run between the bushes 

and eat berries until we felt sick and dig in dusty red dirt that coated our skin. 

Whenever I think back though, I  forget about the fire ants and the dirt and the thorns. 

Instead, I remember that when we drove home, after a day in McDade, 

in the trunk of the car, all of my mother's pots and pans

were filled with 

gleaming 

blackberries. 

It made me feel plenty.  

It's many years later now. 

These past months have been difficult, what with school and all the uncertainty and ache that I guess comes with being 

20.   

But it doesn't matter anymore. Like the thorns and ants and dirt didn't matter. 

Summer is here now. 

And I feel plenty. 

And life feels like blackberries. 

Life is all blackberries. 

XOXO

Blackberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake
via SmittenKitchen.com

SmittenKitchen suggested making this with a variety of berries. But I love blackberries. So there ya go. I've included her recipe for glaze, which sounds amazing, but which I was too lazy to make. 
This entire cake was eaten in under 24 hours. I kid you not. 


Cake
2 1/2 cups (355 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (20 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups (340 grams) granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup (175 ml) buttermilk
3 cups (350 to 450 grams) mixed berries
Glaze
2 cups (240 grams) powdered or confections’ sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon (15 grams) unsalted butter, very, very soft
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 10-cup Bundt pan, either with butter or a nonstick spray.* Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk or sift 2 1/2 cups flour (leaving 2 tablespoons back), baking powder and salt together and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and impossibly fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Then, with the mixer on a low speed, add your eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Beat in vanilla, briefly. Add 1/3 flour mixture to batter, beating until just combined, followed by half the buttermilk, another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the remaining buttermilk and remaining flour mixture. Scrape down from time to time and don’t mix any more than you need to. In the bowl where you’d mixed your dry ingredients, toss the berries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. With a silicon spatula, gently fold the berries into the cake batter. The batter will be very thick and this will seem impossible without squishing the berries a little, but just do your best and remember that squished berries do indeed make for a pretty batter.
Spread cake batter — you might find it easier to plop it in the pan in large spoonfuls, because it’s so thick — in the prepared baking pan and spread the top smooth. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, rotating the cake 180 degrees after 30 (to make sure it browns evenly). The cake is done as soon as a tester comes out clean of batter. At 10 minutes before my baking time was up, a tester was totally wet with batter and I wascertain it would never be done in the estimated time. 7 minutes later, the same tester was clean as a whistle, so fret not.
Set cake pan on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, before inverting the cake onto a serving platter to cool the rest of the way. Cool completely. Once cool, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice and butter until smooth and very, very thick. (If you’d like it thinner, add more juice, but I like the thick drippiness of it, seen above.) Spread carefully over top of cake, letting it trickle down the sides when and where it wishes. Serve at once or keep it covered at room temperature for 3 to 4 days.

Blueberry Boy Bait

Now is the time for staring out of windows at gray skies, or lying on your bed and looking at the ceiling. 
Is it wrong that sometimes, when terrible things happen in the world, I can't quite summon the energy to feel rage or even sadness? 
I just feel numb. 
It is winter now, and I am methodically eating my way through a box of clementines and wishing that someone would cuddle me, while we both drank wine and got silly. 
This is not happening. 
To comfort myself, I baked a cake for the first time in months and months and months. 

I forgot about the calming power of baking: You measure everything, neatly arrange your ingredients on the countertop. The mixer hums, and the measuring spoons clink, and for a while, your mind can just rest from thinking about everyone and everything. The world dissolves in favor of blueberries and brown sugar. This is what I like about making things. This is why I like kitchens and washing dishes. It's real. Tactile. You can feel it. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. 



There is a line from the T.S. Eliot poem "The Wasteland" that I will never forget, it goes:

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”

What shall we ever do when babies cry or your parents cry or people get sick or death happens or people forget your name or the grocery store is unbearable? As my dear friend Zoe said, "And I want to save everyone and I don't know where to even begin to fix so very many broken things." How do you fix the broken things? 

I don't know. 

I don't know if walking the streets with your hair down is the answer. 



I think you should bake this cake. Not only because it's called Blueberry Boy Bait, (the idea being that it's so delicious you'll have to beat your suitors away with a stick)  and the alliterative possibilities are endless. 
You should bake this cake because it is simple. You should bake this, because in a world where nothing is certain, to know that you can measure things and combine them in such a way, that when you are finished there will be cake to eat, that's special. That's something. 

Now is the time for staring out of windows at gray skies, or lying on your bed and looking at the ceiling. 

But is also the time to hold the ones you love close, despite all our imperfections and collective weirdness. 

All I feel is love. 

xoxo

Blueberry Boy Bait
via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted from Cook’s Country, which adapted it from the original

Serves 12, generously
2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk (though buttermilk, which was all I had on hand, worked just great)
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not defrost first as it tends to muddle in the batter)
Topping
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.
Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.
For the topping:
Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

Blueberry Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

This morning at 8:20 am, my cousin Claire sent me my weekly inspirational text: 

LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP.

She texts me this every Monday, religiously. That is just how beyond fantastic she is. 



It is the most important thing in the world to remember. 
I was having such a fine day today. I slept in. I went for a beautiful walk. I felt a lot of love for humanity and life and trees and just everything. 
I thought about the change from summer to fall, and how it's almost a physical feeling: you feel it in your bones. I thought a lot about how I need to find some new dreams to fit the new season. And then I started thinking too much, and suddenly I got overwhelmed with school and with life and how little I know, and how many people I talk to in a single day, and how much there is to learn, and where am I going and what am I doing and what will I do tomorrow and the next day and I want to talk to everyone and do everything, but I also need to read books and write and sing and how do you fit all of this into a day when things like Facebook exist? 

I don't know. 

The thing is, I want to be the kind of girl who simultaneously talks about Botticelli paintings AND rides a motorcycle.



And I had the realization that I'm just not that girl yet. 

I was feeling pretty terrible, until I remembered about LIGHTENING THE FUCK UP. 

And then I began to laugh. And I thought back to this weekend, which was kind of a dream, but also very weirdly wild, and I thought about all the crazy people I know, and I thought about this fantastic cake I baked late last night, just because I wanted to. 

And I remembered that things really aren't bad. 
Perfect? 
Never. 
Actually, that's a lie. 
Things are actually perfect when you eat this cake. 

But just because you do not know what is coming next, it does not mean that things are bad, and just because you are uncertain, it does not mean things are bad, and just because you are young and occasionally do ridiculous things that you maybe say you regret but actually don't, it does not mean things are bad. 
So just LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. And bake that angst right out of your system. 
Right. Now. 

xoxo


Raspberry or Blueberry or Blackberry Buttermilk Cake
via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted from Gourmet, June 2009

I used blueberries and blackberries instead of raspberries as the cake originally called for. This is divine. A very tender, and very perfect everyday cake that takes minutes to whip together, and even fewer minutes to devour. 

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup (5 ounces or 140 grams) fresh raspberries OR blueberries OR blackberries OR both
Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.
At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter (see Note) raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.
Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Strawberry Custard Pie

Let me tell you about something that is really spectacular. 

Friends. 



I mean. Friends are the people who hold your hand when you are crying because LIFE is just too much to handle, and friends are the people you jump on beds with, and friends are the people who you are so comfortable with you don't even have to talk, and friends are the people who get your thought machine and your laughter machine and your happiness machine going. Friends are the ones who serve as your wingmen, who text you inspirational quotes informing you to FUCKING LIGHTEN UP, who show you how to refold a paper crane six times until you finally know how to do it, who assure you that you didn't do anything TOO embarrassing last night, who dance with you in awkward public places, who call you at midnight, the ones who tell you that you better get it together, the ones who walk you back to your apartment late at night, who come to your shows, who write you letters telling you all the things you needed them to say without you even knowing that you needed them to say it, they're the people you spill to, they are the ones who somehow got your trust and wormed their way into your life without you even knowing it. And sometimes they are new/old strangers and sometimes you have known them since playgrounds and baby swimming pools. But somehow, they are THERE. 

Some come and go. Some never go away. Some keep your trust. Some lose it. 

And this is all painful and all good at the same time. 

Who can know why? 



All I want to say is that I am so impossibly grateful for the friends in my life. The new ones. The old ones. The best ones. Even the distant ones. 



They mean the world. 

I baked out all of this friend love into a Strawberry Custard Pie. Strawberry Custard Pie is dedicated to my frambly. For the good times and bad times we are about to have, and for all the talking and laughing we are going to do about it. 

I'm already so grateful. 

xoxo



Strawberry Custard Pie

Pie Crust from BAKED by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup water

In a food processor whirl together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the VERY COLD BUTTER into small pieces and blend until the mixture forms into pea-sized chunks. Dribble in water and whirl until dough just comes together. Or, you can just do all of this with your fingers! 

Take dough out of processor and knead until dough comes together. Divide into two, wrap in plastic wrap and place in freezer for one hour before using. 

Filling:
5 eggs
1 scant c. sugar
4 T. melted butter
½ t. vanilla

1/4 t. cinnamon

about 2 pints strawberries

1/2 recipe Pie Crust

Position an oven rack to the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°.

Lightly butter a 9-inch pie plate. On a well-floured surface, roll pie dough into a circle large enough to cover the pie plate and hang 1 inch over the sides. Fit the dough into the pie plate, crimp the crust and place it in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the filling.

Beat the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon in a mixer, or with a whisk, until completely combined and pale yellow. Remove the pie shell from the refrigerator, strawberries into shell, making an even layer. Pour filling over the fruit.

Place pie on baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour or until the filling has set and the crust is light brown. Allow the pie to cool. Eat.

Cherry Slab Pie

Meeting new people is hard. 

What do you talk about?



I usually start off with fashion related preliminaries: "I love your scarf." Or "sweet shoes." 
Then I don't know what to say. Sometimes we talk weather: "Gosh it's hot." 
Sometimes we figure out who our mutual friends are: "Wow we know the same people." 

And then I panic. What to say? What to say?

Depending on how poorly things are going, I inevitably ask: "Soooooo, what's your spirit animal?" 

This is may be the only thing I learned freshman year of college. 

For the clueless, your spirit or power animal is, according to Wikipedia representative of: "a person's connection to all life, their qualities of character and their power." It's tied up in Shamanism and totems and spirituality and all kinds of other stuff. The animal represents you and can be a symbol of your personal strength or guidance. 

Or something like that. 

People were into it. I've met cats, rabbits, lambs, mountain goats, wolves, butterflies, rabbits, birds of all kinds, dolphins, deer, pandas, monkeys... you get it. 

For a while I was a hummingbird: 
 
I think now I'm just a wren: 

But the thing is, only about 4% of the population REALLY likes talking about their spirit animal.

I think I'm going to start asking people about their spirit dessert. Because darling, I've found mine: 

I can envision this conversation at future parties: 
Me: (At a loss for what to say next) So. Umm. What's your spirit dessert?"
Other Person: (Begins backing away slowly) What?
Me: Oh, y'know! That dessert you have this really deep connection with, one that sort of describes your personality, that's a source of power and strength for you! Mine is Cherry Slab Pie! It's like a regular pie, except that it's flat and has like, DOUBLE THE CRUST, and there's this sweet/tart cherry filling and a drizzle of icing on top! And it's just, like, HEAVEN!
I'm telling you, I AM HEAVENLY! 

I'm going to make so many new friends. 

But really beauties, this pie. It is something else. Please make it. Enjoy it. Think of me. Because when I say it's my spirit dessert, I am so not kidding. 

xoxo

Cherry Slab Pie

via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted it from Martha Stewart

1 recipe Best Pie Crust (recipe below) 

6 cups cherries, pitted (I used regular cherries, however, if using sour cherries, adjust sugar accordingly)
3/4 sugar*
1/4 cup cornstarch
Juice of half a lemon
Pinch or two of salt
2 tablespoons heavy cream or one egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or water or 1 tablespoon water plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice (I did this to make the glaze more interesting)

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, combine cherries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and salt. Stir to combine; set aside.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the larger piece of dough into an 18-by-12-inch rectangle. Do your best to work quickly, keeping the dough as cold as possible (and tossing it in the freezer for a couple minutes if it softens too quickly; it is summer afterall) and using enough flour that it doesn’t stick to the counter. 

Transfer to a 15-by-10-by-1-inch rimmed baking sheet, (pastry will hang over sides of pan).  Pour cherry mixture into lined baking sheet; set aside.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out remaining piece of dough into a 16-by-11-inch rectangle. Drape over filling. Bring bottom pastry up and over top pastry. Pinch edges to seal. Using a fork, prick top crust all over. Brush with heavy cream or egg wash.

Bake until crust is golden and filling is bubbling, 40 to 55 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack until just warm to the touch, about 45 minutes.

In a medium bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and milk, water or lemon juice (or combination thereof) until desired glaze consistency is achieved. Use a spoon to drizzle over top. Serve warm or room temperature. Or cold. It's really good cold. 

Best Pie Crust 

from BAKED by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup water

In a food processor whirl together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the VERY COLD BUTTER into small pieces and blend until the mixture forms into pea-sized chunks. Dribble in water and whirl until dough just comes together.

Take dough out of processor and knead until dough comes together. Divide into two, wrap in plastic wrap and place in freezer for one hour before using.

xoxo

Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie

When I was younger, I had a mild obsession with Audrey Hepburn. 

And I read a biography of her. 

And I became rather depressed, because Audrey Hepburn was absolutely perfect. Absolutely perfect. 

She was a lady. 

She had eyebrows that I will be envious of forever. She was gracious, charming, delightful, positive, humble, generous, lovely, loving, lovable, classy, beautiful, friendly, romantic, exquisite, kind, vivacious, witty, starry, inspirational, inspired, poised, wise, spiritual, and many other adjectives with positive and/or uplifting connotations. She had fabulous taste, was a muse to untold legions, had The Longest Neck, chewed with her mouth closed, was a ballerina, never farted, and walked a billion miles a day so that she never ever gained weight ever. Did I mention her eyebrows?

Only Audrey Hepburn can be that many good adjectives at once. 

But you know what?

That bitch never made a Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie, or else we would have all heard about it.

If she had made this pie, we would all be worshiping at her sainted alter. 

You know who makes Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie?

Me. 

And you should too. 

Show that dead starlet a thing or two. 

Oh I am being slightly morbid and very vulgar today. I do apologize. 

 It's just because I'm so envious of those eyebrows. 

Anyways, the thing is, this pie is so flamboyantly delicious it deserves a string of adjectives even longer than Audrey's. Because it is really that good. Tart and sweet and rich and not rich and comforting, toothsome, delectable, super fine, lip-smacking, melt-in-your-mouth, thrilling, marvelous, splendid, BOFFO, dreamy, peachy, ducky, colorful, crisp, soft, warm, cold, flaky, tender, delicious, deliriously good, gone-in-three-minutes, yum, fabulous, excellent, heart warming, soul warming, practically-a-spiritual-experience, summery, blissful blissful blissful goodness. 

My eyebrows will never be counted among the splendors of the world. But this pie certainly will be.

xoxo

Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie

I love this so much. A new favorite. We ate the entire pie in less than a day. 

One half recipe Best Pie Crust 

Filling:
5 eggs
1 scant c. sugar
4 T. melted butter
½ t. vanilla

1/4 t. cinnamon
1 pint raspberries

1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb, plus an additional 1/3 cup sugar

Topping:
1 t. sugar
¹/8 t. cinnamon

Position an oven rack to the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°.

Lightly butter a 9-inch pie plate. On a well-floured surface, roll pie dough into a circle large enough to cover the pie plate and hang 1 inch over the sides. Fit the dough into the pie plate, crimp the crust and place it in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the filling.

Combine the chopped rhubarb and 1/3 cup sugar and cook over moderate heat in a medium size saucepan, just until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat. 

Beat the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon in a mixer, or with a whisk, until completely combined and pale yellow. Remove the pie shell from the refrigerator, pour rhubarb/sugar combination  and raspberries into shell making an even layer. Pour filling over the fruit.

Combine sugar and cinnamon for topping and sprinkle over entire pie. Place pie on baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the filling has set and the crust is light brown. Allow the pie to cool. Eat.

Strawberry Shortcake

Right now, what I really want to do is cry. 

Not because I am sad. 

I'm not. I'm calm. I'm joyous. It's summer. 

I want to cry with tiredness. 

I keep thinking about all the places I've been and all the people I've met and hugged and laughed with and in my mind I see all the paths I've taken, as if every place I've been this year is crossed and zig-zagged with red threads, all finally leading back to where I am now: home. 

Like this song, I'm home again. 

And home is the same, the doors and chairs and books and rugs are all the same. But I have changed. 

My mind is flooded with ideas and people and places. It's just too much. 

I am so grateful for all of it. Even though the past few months are incomprehensible to me, even though I have no idea what just happened, I know it was good. All of it. All the joys and all the aches. It's all been so FUCKING GRAND. I would do it again in a heartbeat. All of it.



I am just so grateful.

But the strangeness of being home again, of listening to my parents talk and eat dinner and drink beer, and the sound of my brothers playing basketball and shouting to their friends in the front yard, and here, me alone again, in the room I am trying to reclaim as my own, the unreality keeps coming at me in waves. 

Where have I been? What have I been doing? 

No. 

I need to stop. 

What does it matter? It's the past. 

There is only now. 

And in my now, I want lots of strawberry shortcake. 

As a sign of gratitude I give you a recipe. Finally. 

XOXO

Strawberry Shortcake

From The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

I'm actually a cheater, I know Strawberry Shortcake is supposed to have whipped cream in the middle and all that jazz, but honestly I only had ice cream. So I just skipped all the extra steps that Alice write about involving the whipped cream and I felt very decadent and super simple. Which is a very good thing. After all YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE. But for those of you who are fussy and like whipped cream more than ice cream I've included the rest of recipe. Also, my mum suggested I make this, so I have to give her credit for the idea. Because I wouldn't have thought of it on my own. She's a genius. 

For Shortcake:

Preheat oven to 400 F. 

Stir together in a large bowl

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons sugar (optional)

2 teaspoons baking power

Add

6 tablespoons (3/4 sticks) cold butter, cut into small pieces

Cut the butter into the flour with your fingers or a pastry blender until they are the size small peas. Measure: 

3/4 cup heavy cream

Remove 1 tablespoon and set aside. Lightly stir in the remainder of the cream with a fork until the mixture just comes together. Without overworking it, lightly knead the dough a couple of times in the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured board, and roll out about 3/4 thick. Cut into eight 1 1/2 inch circles or squares or whatever your heart desires. Reroll the scraps if necessary. 

Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and lightly brush the tops with the reserved tablespoon or cream. Bake for 17 minutes or until cooked through and golden. 

The The Other Stuff that is On Shortcake:

Hull and slice about 4 cups of strawberries (roughly 2 pints)

Stir in about 1/4 cup sugar (or to taste

Puree one quarter of the strawberry mixture. Stir the puree back into the sliced strawberries and let sit for 15 minutes.
Combine in a bowl:
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste

Whip together, until the cream just holds a soft shape. Slice in half:

6 baked 2 inch shortcakes or biscuits or whatever

Place the biscuit bottoms on serving plates. Over each biscuit, spoon strawberries and a DOLLOP of the flavored whipped cream. Top with the other biscuit half and dust with powdered sugar if you so wish. Serve immediately.