Strawberry Shortcakes with Whipped Cream

For any of you who have yet to pick up on the pattern, I'll spell it out for you. If you so much as see the word "strawberry", know that the post has my boyfriend all over it. Because of the recent makeover and all my giddy self-satisfaction at doing it all on my own--from the logo to every last, frustrating bit of code--my boyfriend has taken a closer look at my blog, instead of the customary once over. I even received my first "reader complaint" when he noted that I had failed to mention him in the Strawberry Bavarian post. The title of the post clearly shows that I had meant to make mention of it, but my busy school schedule and sheer laziness when it comes to writing here prevented the post from ever developing into more than just a recipe card. The cake was made for my boyfriend's .......th birthday. Funny, I hesitated to announce the age, partly because I'm not sure how much more information my boyfriend minds me posting outside of a mere mention and because I suddenly became worried about dating ourselves by giving his age. Besides, as most of you know, the number itself means little and most people who see that kid in action and then hear his real age are surprised.

I will now simply refer to him as J, because I'm not sure how fond he would be of my previous nickname for him. Anyways, this last Monday was our 34 month anniversary or two months short of three years anniversary...however you choose to look at it. And yes, you can see that we're still silly enough to celebrate our relationship down to the month, but part of me hopes that if we're together ten years from now, we'll still be celebrating our 114 month anniversary, a.k.a our 9 1/2 years anniversary.

As soon as I hinted to J that I would be making him something, he immediately exclaimed "ice cream cake!". I almost went for it too, and began mentally planning out individual ice cream cakes made in ring molds, but inevitably came back to my original idea...strawberry shortcakes. Which surprisingly for a strawberry lover, he has never tried, but he's not the kind to try something new unless under duress. He also stared shocked for a moment when he saw how I had cut the dozen peach roses he had given to me short enough to fit into a mason jar. He had expected for me to leave them long-stemmed and elegant, like he was accustomed to seeing, but I explained that I liked the cozy feel of the simple display.

So the verdict? Success! Despite a few helpless (albeit, adorable) questions about how he should go about eating it, his plate was emptied and scraped in a few minutes and I was finally relieved of enough anticipation to enjoy my own.

As soon as I hinted to J that I would be making him something, he immediately exclaimed "ice cream cake!". I almost went for it too, and began mentally planning out individual ice cream cakes made in ring molds, but inevitably came back to my original idea...strawberry shortcakes. Which surprisingly for a strawberry lover, he has never tried, but he's not the kind to try something new unless under duress. He also stared shocked for a moment when he saw how I had cut the dozen peach roses he had given to me short enough to fit into a mason jar. He had expected for me to leave them long-stemmed and elegant, like he was accustomed to seeing, but I explained that I liked the cozy feel of the simple display.

So the verdict? Success! Despite a few helpless (albeit, adorable) questions about how he should go about eating it, his plate was emptied and scraped in a few minutes and I was finally relieved of enough anticipation to enjoy my own. As for myself, I love the recipe. Too often you encounter dry or flavorless shortcakes, but these were so moist and tender that I couldn't resist taking one to work with separate little containers of sliced strawberries and whipped cream and trying to assemble it without anyone noticing and sneak it back to my desk to enjoy.

This recipe came from a recent Tuesdays with Dorie, though I don't know if I can officially claim to have participated seeing as I am two weeks late. You can find the recipe over at The Tortefeasor.