Strawberry Heaven

Yesterday we honored "Strawberry Heaven" (or "Strawberry Shortcake Day"), our annual tradition of eating strawberry shortcake, and only strawberry shortcake, for dinner one day a year.  No, not for dessert after dinner, but for our actual dinner.  This is especially fun since we rarely have dessert after dinner, let alone for dinner.

Normally, our Strawberry Heaven occurs during peak strawberry season, when our own berries are thriving and we pick ever so many and ask everyone we see if they would like to pick some as well.  This year, however, our strawberry patch never thrived and we only picked a handful.  I almost forgot about Strawberry Shortcake Day until I saw strawberries for $1/lb at Aldi this week.  That's the best price I've seen them all summer!

Now, I have in years past bought those ready-made dessert shells you always see by the strawberries at the grocery, and they are fine in a pinch.  I've also made different kinds of cake to use with strawberries, all of which were fine, too.  I had it in my head this year, though, that it was time to try something different.  I wanted to make something, but it needed to be easy, too.  The recipe I used turned out to be our all-time favorite and will probably now just be part of the tradition.  I tweaked a recipe I found online.

Not the prettiest presentation. :)  But yummy just the same. 

It was so simple--its base is Bisquick!  Not the recipe on the box for strawberry shortcake, but a variation of it.  This recipe is sweeter, but not as sweet as those store-bought dessert shells.  We thought this was perfectly sweet.  And you bake it in a cake pan, which is easy and convenient.  It's a winner!  Thought I'd share it with you. :)

For the shortcake:

2 1/3 cup Bisquick
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 425*.  Combine Bisquick, milk, butter and sugar until dough forms.  Press into a round cake pan and bake for about 12 minutes.  Half-way through baking time, sprinkle cinnamon over top.

I let it cool for awhile, but served it when it was still warm.

For the strawberries, I just washed them, cut the tops off and cut the strawberries into quarters or so.  Sprinkled them with a bit of brown sugar (learned that trick--using brown instead of white sugar--from my mom. Tastes yummy with strawberries) and let them sit while the cake was baking/cooling.

To serve:  I cut the cake into wedges, split each wedge into two layers.  On each plate I placed a layer of cake, topped with strawberries and whipped cream (or Cool Whip) and then repeated the layers.

So easy.  So good! :)