Recipes From Our CSA: Angel Food Cake Topped with Local Ontario Strawberries

Strawberries. They conjure up some very unique memories for me… specifically the hot summers my sisters and I would go wild strawberry picking with my grandma. Every summer my dad would take my sisters and I to my grandparents house in Pembroke, or “up north,” as we so fondly called it.

She would pile all three of us, slathered in sunscreen and capped with the most hideous bonnets, in the car and we would travel about half an hour through the thick wooded bush on a dusty, weedy dirt road/path until we reached our “secret wild strawberry patch.”

We would sit and pick for hours. My grandma would tell us stories about how she used to come to that exact patch with her sister and pick strawberries every summer. There was the occasional story that included a wolf or bear, which always kept us on our toes and our eye & ears peeled. Although, there was never any reason to worry, my Grandpa would always tag along – bringing his lawn chair, newspaper and gun.

With our buckets of strawberries and red stained fingers, we would head home to determine the fate of our prize. Most often it would be jam, but on occasion these wild strawberries would make their way onto a sponge cake…. that was my favourite way to eat them. So naturally, when I walked into the farmers market last week to pick up our CSA and saw the local, organic strawberries on the table I knew at that very moment exactly what I was going to make.

Angel Food Cake

Recipe from Epicurious

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups egg whites (11 to 12 large eggs)
1 1/2 cups (150 g) sifted confectioners sugar (sift before measuring)
1 cup (100 g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 qt. local strawberries
whipped cream for topping

Directions
1. For the directions on how to prepare the Angel Food Cake visit Epicurious website.
2. Clean strawberries in a colander under cool running water. Roemove stems with paring knife, and cut in half.
3. Slice cooled Angel Food Cake with serrated knife. Top with whipped cream and strawberries. Enjoy!

Have you ever gone strawberry picking?