About this time of year, strawberries start showing up the star of all the grocery store circulars.  In my town, I can get them for less than $1.50 per pint which, if you are a berry-eater, is a great deal.  So, with strawberries being less expensive, they start showing up at meal-time and dessert-time.  Good news is they are low in potassium (116 mg per 1/2 c), so this is a great time of year pull out some of your favorite strawberry recipes.

Strawberry shortcake is probably one of the most recognizable strawberry dishes in the U.S.  Classic, southern, strawberry shortcake is whipped cream nestled between succulent biscuits.  Quick, strawberry shortcake consists of strawberries, cool whip, and angel food cake (often the little round, single serve angel food cake you see in the store). For patients with renal failure, both of these are okay options.  Not great options, but okay options.  The problem with the biscuits is salt and phosphorus.  The problem with the angel food cake, either boxed or pre-made, is salt and phosphorus.  If you look below, at my chart you’ll see that biscuits run anywhere from 250-580mg of sodium and 95-114 mg of phosphorus.  You, of course, can make a more renal-friendly biscuit (such as these from Davita, but I can’t vouch for flavor).  For cake, the boxed cake mixes are loaded with sodium.  In fact, initially for today’s blog I thought I’d make this a super-duper easy recipe and went to grab a box of angel food cake mix, only to be stunned by the 320mg/ serving sodium  (1/12 of a cake)  and the added phosphate preservatives. The strawberry shortcake dessert cups that I looked at were all <100 mg sodium so this could be a great option as well.  You’ll see below that the calorie content of our cake is a little bit high, so if you’re watching calories the dessert cups would be a great option.

Spring time is the season for fresh strawberries!

I searched around the internet to find an easy scratch strawberry shortcake bar that could be a little bit more renal friendly then boxed cake mixes and ran across today’s recipe.   This beautiful recipe comes from divascancook.com.  Here is the link to the original recipe.  We left out the salt in the cake and replaced the milk with unsweetened almond milk but otherwise left the same.    It is a very simple (didn’t take me more than 20 minutes) and you save x-x mg of sodium by making your cake from scratch.

Strawberry Shortcake Bars/Layer Cake

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

BUTTER-VANILLA CAKE

1/2 c unsalted butter, softened

1 c white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

3/4 c milk

1 tsp vanilla or almond extract (we used almond, but either would be good)

1 pint strawberries

CREAM LAYER

8 oz whipped cream cheese

1/4 c powdered sugar

8 oz frozen whipped topping (ex. Cool Whip)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and butter until creamy.
3. Mix in eggs, baking powder and salt.
4. Alternative between adding in the flour and milk, beating after each addition.
5. Beat until all ingredients are combined.
6. Stir in vanilla extract.
7. Grease and lightly flour a 9×13 baking dish or 2 round baking dishes.
8. Pour batter evenly into the dish/dishes.
9. Bake for 18-20 minutes for 9x 13 baking dish or 12-15 minutes for round baking dishes.  Do not over bake.  Cake will be flat and light in color.
10. Let cool completely.  Set aside.
11. Dice up strawberries. Set aside.
12. In a large bowl, cream together cream cheese, powdered sugar and frozen whipped topping.
13. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly on top of cooled cake.
14. Top with fresh, diced strawberries.
15. Refrigerate for 3 hours. (We actually didn’t refrigerate and it tasted great…)
16. Store in the refrigerator/

Note: As you can see from our picture we layered our two round cakes.  I made the cakes the night before, cooled, and then froze since it is easier to spread frosting on frozen cakes.  We then layered with the cream cheese, strawberries, and just a couple more dabs of the cream cheese mixture to make sure the layers stuck.

Nutrition Information :

KidneyGrub Verdict:

We made the cake from scratch and honestly it took me less than 20 minutes  active time as I noted previously.  This is just about comparable to using a mix.  The cake was very moist and cream and strawberries on top were a fantastic combination.  So, yes, I loved this!  Will I make it again?  Yes!  Do I think it is better than other strawberry shortcake options?  Again, yes. The only other comprarable alternative would be dessert cups with Cool Whip and strawberries.  Less sodium and phosphorus then a lot of other options but still plenty of flavor.