I was taking my boyfriend to the airport memorial day morning when Emily called inviting me to come over for some memorial day grilling and saying I could bring over some dessert, "if I felt like it." Do I ever not feel like making something for dessert? dessert is the most fun thing to make in the world, I swear. Especially if it's something that you can lick off of a spatula while its baking in the oven.
On my way back from the airport I decided to stop at Walkers Produce Stand to pick up some veggies for my mom. As soon as I walked in I smelled something other than veggies....JERSEY STRAWBERRIES. Oh that smell! Oh how I've missed it and longed for it over those long winter months! Import strawberries have never and will never smell and taste as super-ripe, fresh-picked Jersey strawberries. At that point, it didn't matter how much those things cost - I would have given them my Marc Jacobs bag to have a quart of those things (luckily, it didn't come to that). On my way home, I indulged in that smell and spent the ride dreaming of what I could make with those beauties.
I know it's cliche, I know it's overdone, but I couldn't help but succumb to making the obvious: Strawberry Shortcake.
but I didn't want to do just the regular strawberry shortcake, I wanted to do something as grand as these strawberries (can you tell I really love strawberries yet?). So...Strawberry shortcake cake!
I got the recipe for the cake from good ol' Martha, and the Whipped Cream Frosting from CupcakeProject (although, at the last minute I decided not to put strawberries directly in the frosting). The strawberries were so ripe that I didn't even need to use sugar to pull out the juice, I simply put them in a food chopper and they became a juicy, chunky, delicious mess!



Memorial day is a great excuse to just eat and sit around making stupid jokes with friends. Emily and Phil have the perfect house for this sort of thing too, with a great porch looking over their back yard where you can hear the kids running around a being crazy, as they always are.

The shortcake cake went over great. When I was leaving with the leftovers the guys shouted out at me, "wait, you're taking that?!" I would have left it with them, but I had already promised any left-overs to my family who had been drooling over it when I left.

I went back to the fridge this morning to try to get a better picture of the cake, but this is all I found...




Apparently someone was feeling snacky last night! oh well!