Growing up, my family had a repertoire of two special occasion desserts. There was my mom’s blueberry pie and then there was the ambiguously named “strawberry dessert.” I waffled between preferring one or the other from year to year. Whether for Christmas, Thanksgiving or a dinner party with my parents’ friends, those were the options.
But most of the time, I preferred the strawberry dessert for its soft-on-the-inside, crunchy-on-the-outside sweet dumpling topping and warm, sweet, syrupy strawberries below. Plus, it was simple enough that even the kid version of me could help make it. Take a package of frozen strawberry slices, combine with sugar, dot with butter and spoon over the cake-like topping by the spoonful. Bake to perfection.
But what blows me away is that we never varied the filling. Why not used frozen raspberries instead of strawberries? Or, why not use all blueberries? We picked and froze blueberries every September anyway — hence the pie.
After I left home, my world of frozen fruit slowly expanded. But “strawberry dessert” was one of the first recipes I requested. After a few Thanksgivings, I realized nothing was stopping me from making it with whatever frozen (or fresh) fruit I wanted. I could mix to my heart’s content. I could even combine my family’s two standards into one behemoth of a dessert! And I’d call it…
…Strawberry-Blueberry Dessert!
Not rocket science, I know, but delicious.
Strawberry-Blueberry Dessert
Okay, fine, I threw in some blackberries, too. I really love blackberries. I now make this dessert with brown rice flour or a gluten-free flour blend in place of all-purpose and vanilla, unsweetened almond milk in place of regular 2% milk and maple syrup and organic cane sugar instead of white refined. I was given a selection of infused maple syrups to test from Canadian company Pure Infused. The Vanilla-Chai flavour works well here. Growing up, we also made the dessert with regular margarine. You probably shouldn’t do that. Now I use Earth Balance margarine in place of butter because that’s what my digestion tells me is best. Do as you wish. Quality butter is really awesome.
Berries:
3 cups fresh or frozen sliced strawberries (no sugar added)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup fresh or frozen blackberries
1/2 cup Pure Infused Vanilla-Chai maple syrup
2 tbsp butter or Earth Balance margarine
Batter:
7/8 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tbsp butter
1/3 cup + 1 tbsp milk (I just measure 3/8 cup)
Combine berries in a baking dish (I used a pound cake dish, but any deep 8″x8″ or 9″x9″ square or circular baking dish or casserole dish is fine. To really break from tradition, you could divide the berries and batter between six mugs or ramekins). Sprinkle the sugar over the berries and dot with butter. Place in
preheated 350 degree oven until topping is ready.
Combine the flour, baking powder and sugar in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter. Add the milk. Drop batter by the spoonful over the hot berries. Bake until batter is golden, about 30 minutes.
You can expand or decrease the size of the recipe with more or less batter and berries. Serve warm with a scoop of ice cream, preferably a homemade maple lavender-chai and/or a vanilla, star anise & pear one.
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