In case you haven’t noticed, strawberries are in season right now! This makes us extremely excited for a couple reasons. First of all, the strawberries at this time of year are extra big, juicy, and red. And second of all, 16 oz. of strawberries only costs about $2.99. Oh, and third (and most importantly), many restaurants in Boston are participating in the Strawberry Dessert Festival. So, Chels and I decided that in honor of this, we’ll be posting a series of strawberry-related recipes here on We are not Martha.
But since Chels and I aren’t inviting all of you over to enjoy our strawberry treats (sorry, our apartments aren’t big enough; we promise we would if we could!), you should participate in the Strawberry Dessert Festival if you’re in the Boston area. At participating restaurants from June 12-June 28, when you order specifically prepared strawberry dessert items, a percentage of proceeds will go to the Federation of Mass Farmers Markets. The Federation of Mass Farmers Markets is the only statewide non-profit dedicated to supporting and promoting farmers’ markets. We LOVE farmers’ markets here at WANM, so this is definitely a cause we can get behind!
Here are the participating restaurants:
Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro, Tremont 647, Garden at the Cellar, Henrietta’s Table, flora, The Summer Shack (Cambridge), Burton’s Grill (Boston), Bistro 5, Highland Kitchen, The Fireplace, 51 Lincoln, L’Andana Grill, Haley House Bakery Cafe, Tabella, Tastings Wine Bar and Bistro, Tatte Fine Cookies and Cakes, Tomasso Trattoria, and Watch City Brewing Company.
Also, a few Whole Foods Markets (Charles River Plaza, Symphony, Brighton, and Fresh Pond) will be donating 50% of proceeds from sales of their strawberry parfaits from June 12-21.
In the meantime (and because the Strawberry Dessert Festival won’t last forever), here’s a recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cookies, which were pretty tremendous! Who knew strawberries in a cookie would taste SO SO good? But they do!
Strawberry Shortcake Cookies (makes about 2 dozen):
- 12 oz. strawberries
- 1 t fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 C plus 1 T sugar
- 2 C all-purpose flour
- 2 t baking powder
- 1/2 t salt
- 3 oz. (6 T) butter, cold, unsalted, and cut into small pieces
- 2/3 C heavy cream
- Sanding sugar for sprinkling (or regular sugar if you don’t have sanding)
First you’ll want to hull your beautiful, in season strawberries!
And don’t worry; “hulling” really just means getting rid of the green stem. I simply cut it off with a knife, not owning any fancy hulling tools. Then I diced the strawberries into 1/4 inch pieces.
In a medium bowl, I threw in the strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 T of the sugar.
In another larger bowl, I whisked together the flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 7 T of sugar. Then I took my butter pieces and rubbed them into the flour mix with my fingers. I just used my hands, but a pastry cutter (also known as a pastry blender) would come in handy. I kept mixing this together until it was a crumb-like mixture. Then I added the heavy cream and stirred until it was dough-like. And then added in the strawberry mixture.
I spooned (using an ice cream scoop!) about a T of dough onto a cookie tray sprayed with some cooking spray. I think I made my cookies a bit bigger than Martha made hers as I only got about 2 dozen out of my batter (she got 3 dozen). I thought the ones I made were the perfect size, though.
Then you can sprinkle the cookies with your sanding sugar, which is basically just larger granule sugar, to make the cookies nice and pretty. I sadly couldn’t find any, so I just sprinkled the cookies with regular sugar.
Bake the cookies for about 19 minutes at 375 degrees.
And YUM, they’re done! These cookies really did taste like strawberry shortcake and I was quite thrilled with them! I NEVER would have thought, “hey, let’s put some strawberries in cookies,” but it most definitely works. And then I thought they would be weird to eat warm, but they weren’t at all. Now I’m envisioning putting two of these cookies together with some strawberry (or vanilla) ice cream in between. Mmmm. Yup, I’m pretty thrilled it’s strawberry season!
So, Strawberry Shortcake Cookies are just one thing you can do with strawberries this season. Please go out and support the Federation of Mass Farmers Markets by eating dessert (and dinner while you’re there) at one of the participating restaurants (these are some of the Boston-area’s BEST restaurants!) during the Strawberry Dessert Festival. And please make sure you check out your local farmers’ markets this summer, no matter where you live.
To find a farmers’ market near you, you can visit localharvest.org and enter your zip code!
Keep checking in with us because we’ll have some more delicious strawberry desserts coming your way!
[Sues and Chels]
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Freakin' BRILLIANT! ♥
Is it me or does the cookie on the left in the top picture look like Mr. Bill.
These look wonderful! Tagging the site.
I will so be making these! They sound amazing!!!!
What lovely cookies – I so need to go strawberry picking!
I never thought that strawberries would be nice in cookies! Not any fresh fruit anyway. Probably only dried ones. Good idea, girls
By the way, I've got a pair of pearl earrings to give away on my blog. Come check them out
these look great! which reminds me i am going strawberry picking this weekend.
those look so delicious!
I love strawberries!these look like heaven..
These look so delicious! I will have to try these!
Yum!!! These look awesome. I love the big chunks of strawberries.
I made these last night and they were delicious!! Thanks for sharing!
We saw these pop up a while ago. They sound so good! Is it best bake them in small batches? Do they freeze well? Something about the fresh fruit feels like they won't keep for more than a couple of days, and that would be sad as we always bake in massive abundance.
Strawberry Shortcake Cookies? I'm smitten.
Love it! Wish I had this recipe a couple of weeks ago – bought big basket of strawberries and the kids wanted something different instead of just eating them fresh.
Amazing!! Look sooooo good!
Great blog name too
Love these. I have a lot of strawberries at home too!
Those cookies look fantastic – fabulous ideas!
Yay for Farmers Market and double yay for these cookies! Love the idea of sandwiching some vanilla ice cream between them. Oh, and thanks for clarifying what hulling means. I thought it meant removing the seeds and that just sounded crazy to me! Thank goodness it's not
if only there was a way to encapsule the whipped cream! no, but seriously,I just made these (only with blackberries), and just want to thank you. ah-mazing.
Those look delectable. Must make them. Thanks for the reminder that strawberries are in season. I always forget! Now you are making me want to go berry picking this weekend. If only the weather wasn't so awful!
Made these last night and was pleasantly surprised. Although they were not as good this morning. You do have to eat them right away.
ooh, i just picked up some strawberries at the farmers market! if they last long enough i'll have to give these a try, i <3 shortcake
I made them over the weekend!
http://zubrowka24.blogspot.com/2009/06/yummy-in-my-tummy.html
I stumbled on your blog last week and had the opportunity last night to make these cookies.
They were absolutely fabulous!
I am so happy I stumbled onto your blog – even more delighted to find you are from Boston!
Thanks for sharing.
Now, if my non-savvy techie self can figure out how to follow your blog…hmmm…