Sparkle Kitchen: Blackberries with Cream
In this week’s Martin & Sylvia story "The Cabin", Martin and Sylvia’s family have been invited to join friends at their mountain cabin in the woods for a weekend of blackberry picking! Everyone is excited to hike the many trails to the lake and waterfall, and, of course, pick some beautiful blackberries.
While berries are good in a variety of dishes and desserts—pie, cobbler, ice cream, and on and on—really good, fresh-picked berries rarely require that much fuss. In season, our local blackberries are so big, fat, and juicy that we often have them plain for dessert or with just a little whipped cream.
If you’ve never made homemade whipped cream before, it’s definitely worth the tiny extra effort it takes.
If you’re in a primitive cabin in the woods you can whip your cream with a hand whisk, but otherwise a mixer will be easier on your arms.
We like a mixture of orange extract and vanilla for flavoring, but feel free to play depending on your own preferences. Mint or bourbon flavoring would also be delicious!
The only potential pitfall? Make sure your cream is really cold when you start to whip it. If the cream is too warm, it will never stiffen and you’ll eventually just make butter. While that’s a fun experiment in itself, it’s not good eats with fresh berries.
Happy picking!
Blackberries with Whipped Cream
Ingredients
1 pint of cream
¼ cup sugar
1½ tablespoons flavoring of your choice
1 pint blackberries
Directions
Pour the very cold cream into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on medium speed until the cream starts to form soft peaks, then slowly add the sugar and flavoring. Continue to whisk for another minute of so, just to get the ingredients well incorporated, and then store in the fridge until ready to serve.
At dessert time, give the blackberries a quick rinse, and serve them up with generous dollops of whipped cream on top.
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About the Author
Meryl Carver-Allmond
The Sparkle Kitchen Series is created by Meryl Carver-Allmond.
Meryl lives in a hundred-year-old house near the prairie with her sweet husband, two preschoolers, one puppy, one gecko, and about ten chickens. While she's been writing since she could pick up a pen, in recent years she's discovered the joy of photography, too. She feels lucky to be able to combine those skills, along with a third passion — showing people that cooking for themselves can be healthy and fun — in her Sparkle Kitchen posts.
