RIPE strawberries don't travel...

Hi, yes, I have been missing in action for about 5 weeks. I was helping family in California.

They are so LUCKY; there are farmer's markets almost everyday where you can buy the fruits and veggies at the peak of freshness! Such is the case of STRAWBERRIES...there are no white shoulders on these babies...and they bruise so easily just from walking home with them to the house. Basically all you need to do is wash and towel them dry, take the stems off and ENJOY! That being said, I made a couple of things with strawberries. This is one- a pâte briseé lined with semisweet chocolate layered with vanilla pastry cream topped with fresh strawberries glazed with red currant jelly. This beauty was dessert, then breakfast!

A few weeks later, another strawberry tart with rhubarb, and then strawberries with some orange zest, Grand Marnier and of course, homemade whipped cream laced with vanilla & orange blossom extract over delicious bakery made sponge cake!!!

So the lesson learned in all of this eating, eat those fruits and veggies from the farmers at the peak of freshness and seasonality! Don't eat those white shoulders since these berries are definitely worth the wait! Now that I'm back on the East Coast, I'm on search of those ripe berries again, and no longer will settle for anything less.

What's your favorite strawberry recipe???

Happy Mother's Day!

This was my Mother's Day dessert this year. I made pate brisee in a lovely Matfer tart pan, but since I am not in my own kitchen, the crust shrank with out pie weights. Still buttery and crisp, but short on the sides. Still architecturally sound, I melted semi sweet chocolate to line the inside of the shell, and layered that with vanilla pastry creme, and piled up the red-ripe juicy berries.

It was a first Mother's Day for my daughter and my first as a grandmama...though i am called Jujy, just like my baking, JujyCakes.

THANK you, Martha Stewart

My flock of Sheep!

I know I have not been writing as much as I can. I've been busy moving and settling in. In this day and age of multiple email addresses- I hardly look at my Yahoo acct...and imagine my surprise today! I am a winner in the Martha Stewart Cutest Cupcakes 2010. There are 20 other winners as well, and I am slide #4!!! The little black sheep is missing on the picture BUT I know that he is sitting there on the sheet tray with all his other friends.
I have a brand new CUPCAKES cookbook, which is a good thing since my copy has a broken binding, stains and lots of love notes with tweaks!  Hope you enjoy looking at the gallery AND for those of my friends and family, who have had my flock of sheep to eat, THANK you for enjoying them and supporting my JujyCakes business!

my Flock of Sheep