Strawberry Shortcake

This is more of a rewrite of a post from my old blog, so all of the photos are old. So why am I posting it? Cuz it's another use for the basic white cake recipe I posted the other day. :)

No ingredient photo, sorry. Not sure where along the line that photo got separated from the pack, but it's gone now, no use dwelling on it, right?

You'll need 1-2 lbs of fresh strawberries, about a cup of sugar (maybe more, maybe less), a tub of cool whip (or you really could whip up some fresh whipped cream, not real necessary, though), and a package of cream cheese. Oh, and a cake of some kind. The basic white cake recipe I linked to above works AWESOME for this. But you could just as easily use a frozen pound cake, or an angel food cake from your market's bakery, or I GUESS you could use some of those really nasty tasting little sponge cake cups that markets always seem to have on a shelf right next to the fresh strawberries. (Have you ever eaten one of those things? Gag. I'll eat the strawberries by themselves with a spoon first, thanks.)

Yummmmmm! Start by rinsing your strawberries. Cut off the tops and slice them up however you want. I normally slice them into quarter segments.

Then sprinkle them with about a cup of sugar and mix it all up. More or less, depending on how sweet your berries are and how sweet you like them to be. Yeah, you'll have to actually taste one to know. Cooking is so unpleasant, isn't it? ;)

Put the bowl of sugared strawberries into the fridge for a couple hours. This is a very necessary step. Why? Because you are macerating the strawberries. That sugar is not only going to make the berries sweet, but it is going to pull SOOOOOO much juice out of them and make a yummy 'sauce' for them, too! :D And yup, the photo of the finished strawberries apparently ran off with the ingredients photo. Oh well.

Meanwhile, bake your cake and make your cream. Put the whipped cream and the cream cheese in a large bowl and mix them up until smooth and totally combined. You can do this by hand or use a mixer...doesn't really matter. Hand mixing is better for your arm muscles, though! ;)

I really miss my red spoonula...I think it disappeared with the rest of the photos for this post. Its blue and green brothers are still in my drawer, though....*tears*

When you're ready to serve, put a slice of cake on a plate, and top with a few spoonfuls of the strawberries. Make sure to include lots of the juice to soak into the cake!

Put your cream mixture into a Ziploc bag and trim off a corner and pipe some of it over the strawberries.

Top with a few more strawberries, and make sure to spoon lots of the juice over the whole thing.

NOMMMMMMMMM!