Russian Cream with Berries

School's out Friday. The countdown has been dramatic — Emma marked each remaining day on the kitchen calendar with a large X and a commentary. "Three more days of prison," she wrote on Wednesday. She is nine. She is already this. I made her erase "prison" but I understand the sentiment. The end of school feels like liberation at every age, and the beginning of summer feels like infinity, and both of those feelings are lies but they're the good kind of lies, the kind that make June feel like it will last forever.

I signed Noah up for a STEM camp at Drake University. Two weeks, all day, robots and coding and whatever else STEM means for an eleven-year-old who already has a go-kart and a weather station and the dismantled remains of at least four household appliances in his closet. Emma is doing swim team. Jack is doing 4-H garden project and nothing else, because Jack does not need organized activities, he needs dirt and sunlight and the freedom to inspect his corn rows without interference.

I made a strawberry shortcake Saturday night from scratch. The shortcakes are biscuits — flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, cream — cut into rounds and baked until golden. The strawberries are macerated in sugar for an hour until they release their juice. The whipped cream is heavy cream, a touch of sugar, whipped by hand because I don't have a stand mixer and because hand-whipped cream has a texture that machine-whipped can't match. You assemble it: biscuit, berries, cream, biscuit, berries, cream. You eat it immediately. You don't photograph it. You eat it.

I photographed it. It was blurry. The berries looked good. Kevin's hand was reaching into the frame, which is the Holloway version of food photography — someone is always reaching, someone is always hungry, someone is always eating before I can get the shot.

Jack's corn is three feet tall. At this rate it'll be taller than the fence by July. The neighbor, Dave Peterson, leaned over the fence Saturday and said, "Is that corn?" I said yes. He said, "In your backyard?" I said yes. He said, "Huh." That's the Des Moines reaction to a Weber growing corn where corn isn't expected. Huh. Just huh. I'll take it.

Strawberry shortcake was Saturday’s answer to the blurry, reaching, beautiful chaos of the last weekend before school lets out — and it was exactly right. But if you want something that holds its shape a little longer than whipped cream does in a Des Moines June, something you can actually set on the table and step back and look at before Kevin’s hand comes into frame, this Russian Cream with Berries is what I’ll be making next. It’s cool and silky and tastes like the kind of summer you keep trying to remember in February. You fold it together in about ten minutes, let the refrigerator do the rest, and pile fresh strawberries on top right before you serve it — no biscuits required, no stand mixer, no photographs.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes + 4 hours chilling | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 envelope (1/4 oz) unflavored powdered gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup full-fat sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 cup fresh raspberries or blueberries (or a mix)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar (for macerating berries)

Instructions

Bloom the gelatin. Pour the cold water into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin evenly over the surface. Let it sit undisturbed for 5 minutes until it looks wrinkled and absorbed.
Heat the cream. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream and 3/4 cup sugar. Stir gently and heat until the sugar is fully dissolved and the cream is steaming — do not let it boil. Remove from heat.
Dissolve the gelatin. Add the bloomed gelatin to the warm cream mixture and whisk until completely dissolved, about 1 minute. Let the mixture cool for 10 minutes until it is no longer hot to the touch.
Fold in sour cream and vanilla. Add the sour cream and vanilla extract to the cooled cream mixture and whisk until smooth and fully combined. The mixture will be pourable and glossy.
Chill until set. Pour the cream evenly into 6 small ramekins, dessert glasses, or one shallow serving dish. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight, until firmly set.
Macerate the berries. About 30 minutes before serving, toss the sliced strawberries and remaining berries with 1 tablespoon of sugar in a bowl. Let them sit at room temperature, stirring once or twice, until they release their juice.
Serve. Spoon the macerated berries and their juice generously over each chilled cream. Serve immediately, directly in the ramekins or glasses.

Nutrition (per serving)

Russian Cream with Berries — What We Make When Summer Finally Starts