Happy Valentine's Day!!! In honour of this special day of love, I thought I would share my favourite three ways to eat strawberries with you.
CHOCOLATE & COCONUT SHAVINGS
I mean this one was a pretty obvious one if you know me...chocolate can be eaten with anything!!!
Usually in the summer I like to melt mint chocolate on my strawberries; it's super refreshing and delicious. The unexpected combination is definitely unique, but I urge you to try it nonetheless! However, do be careful when selecting your mint chocolate; don't pick the ones with a creamy mint filling but rather the ones where the mint has been incorporated into the chocolate.
Mint chocolate alas isn't a popular flavour here in Belgium (pralines are ruling this country!), so while I wait for my next trip to Stonemanor (a British store here in Belgium) I make do! I found this ready to melt Guylian chocolate fondue dip (FYI my favourite brand of chocolate) the other day in my local supermarket and after adding some coconut shavings you get a quick and simple luxurious snack ready to eat in no time!
ICING SUGAR
The quickest and easiest way to eat strawberries! Although I would suggest you prepare this a good few hours before eating and leave in the fridge (which I clearly didn't do for the photos soz!). This will give the icing sugar plenty of time to soak up the strawberry juice and create a lovely syrupy concoction at the bottom of your container, ready to pour when you're ready to serve.
All you have to do is clean your strawberries, cut off the stems and sprinkles with icing sugar (the quantity is entirely up to you and how sugary you want your strawberries to be).
VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE
Okay, so this one might be slightly more complicated to make and a bit of a cheat as I'm eating the strawberries in the form of jam. Also, I'm adding fondant icing for decorative purposes which technically doesn't make this a Victoria Sponge cake, but hey ho pOtato potAto!
I took Delia Smith's Classic Sponge Cake recipe from her Delia's Cakes book (which I've already featured in my Gluten Free Banana & Walnut Loaf blog post). And cooked it in a special heart-shaped mould I got from Ikéa.
Ingredients for sponge cake:
115g self-raising flour (I used Doves Farm gluten free one)
1 teaspoon baking powder
115g spreadable butter (a.k.a. at room temperature)
115g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs (I only had small eggs so I did 3)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I did 2, because you can never have too much vanilla!)
Preheat oven at 170°C (I did 200°C because my oven is non-fan and also a bit special). Sift flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl, then add all the other ingredients. Whisk until you have a smooth creamy consistency. Pour mixture into a buttered mould or cake tin and cook for 25 minutes.
I cooked it for 30 minutes but when I took my cake out of its mould to put on a cooling rack some cake got left behind (I know; wipes away tear...sniff!). Not unsalvageable however, but since I had never cooked with a silicone mould before, I made the rookie mistake of assuming it would be non-stick enough to not need butter, but I was wrong! Always butter your moulds and cake tins kids!!!
Once cooled, I cut the sponge cake evenly in half using this handy dandy cake slicer. Then I spread a layer of jam (a.k.a. "strawberries"), and whipped cream on the bottom layer (from a can coz #lazy), then covered with the top layer. To stabilised the "structure" for the fondant icing (which I got premade in Casa) I added a few toothpicks here and there. Roll out your fondant icing and decorate as you please!
There you have it, three ways to eat your strawberries! I'm totally counting these as one of my five a day.
If you like strawberries, how do you like to eat them?
Any fun plans this Valentine's Day?
Let's be honest here, how many heart-shaped chocolates have you indulged in today? definitely not judging! ;)
P.S. I you're wondering what's on my nails, it's Essie's Altitude Attitude from their Winter Collection 2015. But Watermelon, which is in their permanent collection, is also a gorgeous pinky red... although slightly on the more pinky side than Altitude Attitude it's still a good alternative!
xxxemma