June 14: National Strawberry Shortcake Day

Growing up, I thought the recipe for strawberry shortcake was: fresh strawberries, angel food cake, and whipped cream.  In looking up today's food observance, I learned that while that is perfectly acceptable as strawberry shortcake, it's not what everyone considers strawberry shortcake.  Some claim that the only true strawberry shortcake is made with a biscuit (and the Bisquick recipe is very popular).  Some recipes use pound cake and a few sites claim that strawberry shortcake is made with any sort of white cake.

Well, I thought, "I have strawberries.  I can make biscuits.  I have some whipping cream left.  I'll try a biscuit version!"  Which would have worked out well if I had actually remembered to buy baking powder at the store and if my whipping cream hadn't frozen into sludge.  So I stared at my strawberries, despairing that I would have to eat them as the delicious fresh things they are, plain with no sugar.  Then I remembered I had some leftover pound cake in the freezer!  I quickly broiled a few slices (almost setting off the fire alarm - a bad habit of mine when using the broiler) and sliced up some of the strawberries.

So while it wasn't a traditional strawberry shortcake at all, it was still close enough that I felt like I had celebrated the day.  Considering I got back from a business trip a few hours ago and I'm only running on three hours of sleep, it was as close as I was going to get without buying a pre-made strawberry shortcake.