It’s officially summer which means it’s officially strawberry season. Ontario strawberries are some of the most delicious I have ever eaten. Miss O loves when we go to the market on Friday mornings – our favourite strawberry booth (who sells nothing but fresh strawberries from their farm) always let Miss O have a sample…or two or three. I decided to make a quick and simple dessert for us this week using these sweet, delicious strawberries: a simplified strawberry shortcake. 

There are only three (well, technically four) ingredients required:

• mini spongecakes
• vanilla ice cream
• strawberries
• sugar

You do need about 30 minutes to prepare this dish – don’t be scared, it’s not 30 minutes spent preparing it; the strawberries need 30 minutes to reach perfection.

Method:

1. Wash, core and cut up a pint of fresh strawberries. Place into a bowl.
2. Sprinkle 1-2 tbsp of white sugar over the strawberries and toss to mix. Put bowl in fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving. Give them a little stir every now and then. The sugar will bring out all the delicious strawberry juices.
3. Once you are ready to serve, simply put a spongecake on each plate, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and pour a big helping of your macerated strawberries over top!

It doesn’t get any easier than that. You can also swap out the ice cream for Cool Whip or fresh whipping cream. Miss O enjoys her without ice cream – she’s all about the cake soaked in yummy strawberry juice.