Earl Makes Shortcakes 4 Ways - Easter Feast & Beyond!

I must start this post giving credit for this part of our Easter feast to my #2 Daughter. She and her hubby are doing a Ketogenic diet, which, in short, means no carbs, grains or processed foods. Butter, beef, Bacon & cheese are staples. It seems like it would be wonderful (until you see what you CAN'T have). Without giving you too many details, the diet allows for occasional "cheat", days. Easter was one of those days and we loaded our bodies with carbs and loved it.

Well, the dessert offering on this day was strawberry shortcake. It was not anything difficult, but my, was it tasty!

My daughter chose perfectly ripe, fresh strawberries, mini shortcakes from a local grocery store bakery, strawberry glaze, and aerosol whipped topping. As you can see from my photo above, it was near perfect! And the great thing about this was that after Easter Sunday, their cheat day ended, so they sent me home with the extra shortcakes, glaze, strawberries, and aerosol cream! I was willing to sacrifice my body for the sake of their maintaining their Keto eating😉...yes I love them THAT much!

I went on to make several variations of the classic strawberry shortcake with the ingredients my daughter sent home and will share all of them here.
...More ways to make shortcake
My daughters ingredients inspired a sweet breakfast treat that could also be a dessert:

Store-bought shortcake split and toasted
Topped with local blackberry jam and whipped cream 

#1—Shortcake with Blackberry Jam

I wanted to try something new so I split the store-bought mini shortcake and placed it in our toaster. It was about the size of an English muffin after splitting and I toasted it on the bagel setting to get more golden color and a bit of crispiness. After toasting, I spread a delicious, local blackberry jam from a region of northern Utah famous for its varied and succulent fruit crops. It is near the a large bird refuge at the north end of The Great Salt Lake. This dish would have been great topped with some of my wife's (a.k.a "Turkey's") homemade yogurt and fresh berries too!

#2 & 3—Shortcake French Toast

The blackberry shortcake worked so well that I thought I would use shortcake to re-imagine a breakfast staple - FRENCH TOAST!

I started again by splitting the mini shortcake. I then dipped them in my french toast batter (eggs, milk & a bit of sugar).

It worked great. I finished it in two ways, with strawberries, just like the traditional, topped with whipped cream. The second was more of a departure from strawberry shortcake, but more like traditional breakfast french toast. I topped this with maple syrup and a sunny side-up  egg.

This is one I would do anytime, and would go well with sausage or bacon too!

#4—Strawberry & Cherry Shortcakes 

For the last of my Shortcake Four Ways, I decided to mix strawberries with bottled dark Morello cherries from Trader Joe's.

This was a tasty dessert!. I used the light syrup from the cherries on one shortcake and topped it with the cherries.

The other shortcake got the last of the strawberry glaze and the last of the strawberries, then I topped them with some whipped cream. Thanks Daughter #2!