Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

We are still going strong with the strawberries over here so I thought I'd share this simple cake recipe with you.  It is a moist single layer cake without icing and it makes a great light summer dessert or a nice sweet breakfast pastry.

 Please excuse the camera phone picture!

I found this recipe on the blog Marzipan and the only thing I changed was to substitute chopped strawberries for the raspberries.  (PS, I've made this with raspberries too and it was just as amazing!)

Click on over for the full recipe and pictures that do this cake a lot more justice.  Enjoy!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

There was a bit of a sweet tooth attack here last night.  I love eating healthy meals but I love sweets too and I don't think those two things contradict each other.  It seems to me that if you are eating healthy, low calorie meals a small dessert is more than ok.  Especially if the sweets are homemade with whole ingredients and not just processed junk.

Sometimes that processed stuff (oreos how I love you!) can be so appealling and they are oh so easy.  But then again, making something from scratch doesn't have to be hard either.  As I mentioned the sweet tooth struck last night but there was no dessert!  Ah!  It also so happens that since it was Thursday (and we grocery shop on Saturday)  there was almost nothing left  in the house that was up for grabs.  We did have one last lemon though, and it turned out that was all I needed to whip up a batch of these amazing lemon crinkle cookies.  I have a thing for crinkle cookies, they are so soft and chewy on the inside...yum.  Last Christmas I posted a recipe for some Butterscotch Crinkle Cookies that also happened to be a last minute pantry raid.  Delicious.

Anyway, these cookies mix up quickly and you really only need a few pantry staples and a lemon.  They are lemony and lightly sweet and they are sort of addictive so watch out!  The recipe only makes about 2 dozen 2 inch cookies so if you are feeding a crowd you may want to double this.   Homemade cookies in under half an hour....and they really are better than oreos. :)  Enjoy!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies, from lauren's latest
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Spray two baking sheets with cooking spray or line the trays with silicon baking mats.

In the mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.  Once it is light and fluffy add the egg and vanilla and mix until they are well incorporated.  In a small bowl mix together the remaining ingredients with the exception of the powdered sugar.  Add the dry ingredients a bit at a time to the wet and mix just until combined.

Put the powdered sugar on a small plate.  Scoop scant tablespoons of dough and roll them into balls and then roll the balls in the powdered sugar.  Place them on the prepared sheet pans.

Bake the cookies for 9-11 minutes or until the tops are set and no longer look wet or shiny.   Remove them to a wire rack to cool.

Strawberry-Soda Ice Cream

More strawberries?  Yeah.  Any minute now I'm going to have to change the name of this blog from 4 Pears to 4,000 Strawberries.  Sorry about that but I am having a really hard time staying away from all those strawberry sales at the market.  And apparently my Mom is too because when we got home from vacation there were some in the refrigerator that I knew I needed to do something with soon.

Luckily this month's Food Network Magazine provided me with the perfect new strawberry recipe which just so happened to coincide with my other obsession right now: homemade ice cream.

Up until now I've only made custard based ice creams (you know, the kind with eggs that has to be cooked on the stove and takes a couple of days to completely finish).  Custard-based ice creams really are the richest and creamiest ice creams out there but they take more time and effort than I had after a delayed flight home from Maui, complete with an overnight stay in LA and 4 hours of sleep.

This recipe can be made in the afternoon and will be ready to enjoy by evening, or even eaten right away if you don't mind soft-serve....how can anyone mind soft-serve?  In that case this is a pretty great 30 minute ice cream with a wonderful crisp strawberry flavor and a pretty pink color.  The recipe calls for red cream soda such as "Big Red", but I've never heard of that so I have no idea what that tastes like on its own.  Mr Pears went to the store to grab the soda (you can use regular cream soda too) and came home with strawberry soda instead and it was delicious.

Another wonderful strawberry treat to try this summer, I hope you love it!

PS.  The above photo is from Food Network, I tried to photograph my ice cream but I just couldn't get a good shot of it in my bowl and while I was pondering other ways to photograph it I just started eating it.  I apologize but it was starting to melt and I just couldn't let that happen. ;)

Strawberry-Soda Ice Cream, slightly adapted from Food Network Magazine July/August 2012 (or here)
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups half and half
3/4 cup red cream soda, regular cream soda, or strawberry soda
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 cup strawberries, mashed (you can you frozen too, just thaw first then mash)

Whisk together all of the ingredients in a medium-sized bowl.  Pour this into your ice cream machine and follow your machine's basic churning instructions.  It should take between 10 and 20 minutes depending on the machine to produce a "soft-serve" consistency.  Once it does, pour the ice cream into a freezer container and freeze until firm.  Or eat it soft...yum.