Poundcake is a beautiful vessel for ripe summer fruits. I love it grilled, with juicy peaches and lots of honey. I love it cubed up and layered in a trifle with cream and berries. In my mind, a good poundcake is one of the most delicious accompaniments for our bounty of summer produce and strawberry shortcake is no exception.

Florida strawberry season has been in full swing for a little bit now and I’ve made it my mission that our house is never without those precious little berries. I’ve been snacking on them regularly and I used the tops to make ice cream, but I really wanted to create a low-maintainence, semi-traditional summer dessert that would showcase my berries and all of their beauty. For this slightly fancy strawberry shortcake, I simmered fresh strawberries with whole black peppercorns and a little sugar, to create a thick strawberry compote. I generously spooned this atop slices of citrus almond pound (which, by the way, freezes like a dream), and topped the whole thing with a scoop of strawberry top and black pepper caramel ice cream and a generous glug of good olive oil. It’s what I’ll be eating all summer.

Why it is important to use room temperature ingredients when baking?

Most baking recipes call for room-temperature ingredients, and though it can be a bit of a hassle, it’s a pretty important note. Let’s take a quick look at why this isn’t always a skippable step.

The temperature of an ingredient changes the consistency. This is especially true when you’re working with butter. Cold is butter is firm and plastic. It holds it shape well, which is important for doughs like pies and biscuits where those big clumps of butter will later melt into pockets of flaky layers. For something like cookies or cakes, however, when your batter or dough should be fully homogenized, clumps of butter will result in inconsistency and uneven baking in your final product.

Butter holds air. Soft butter, when beaten with sugars, coat the outsides of the sugar granules, trapping air inside. This air is important for leavening and results in fluffier cakes, cookies, etc.

Eggs should be room temperature too. Eggs are emulsifiers, which means that help to bind all of your ingredients together and when they are at room temperature, they are able to mix more evenly into a batter, trapping that much-desired air and binding everything together. Also, if you add cold eggs (or milk, yogurt, etc) to room temperature butter, it can cause your batter to curdle, resulting in those pockets of unmixed butter.

Essentially, all of your ingredients should be at the same temperature, so if a recipe calls for room temperature butter, but doesn’t specify the temperature of the eggs, milk, etc…always use room temperature.

What is room temperature?

Room temperature is technically between 68-72° F. Butter is at room temperature when you are able to press your finger into the butter and it holds an indentation. If your finger is able to be pressed through the butter completely, it’s too warm.

How can I bring my ingredients to room temperature quickly?

There are microwaving tricks for bringing butter to room temperature, but I usually find that they soften my butter too much. I prefer to leave butter on the counter for about an hour, or if I’m in a time crunch, I place it next to my oven or stove while they are turned on. If you are a regular baker, you can leave butter out on the counter overnight so that it is ready in the morning.

To bring eggs to room temperature, simply place them in a bowl of warm water while you prepare the rest of your ingredients. This will take the chill off of them and they will be closer to room temperature when you are ready to use them.

You can microwave milk in 30-second intervals until it reaches room temperature.

So the moral of the story is, yes, room temperature matters!