Thank goodness the guys got a computer for Christmas. If it weren’t for their computer, our run with the blogathon would have crashed and burned today. The computer, which occasionally frustrates, exactly at the times it needs to be the most cooperative, strikes again.

Where were we?

Strawberries. There are so many dessert options for strawberries. Their sweet taste pairs well with light, golden, pound cake. A fast dessert to pull together is strawberries and pound cake. Pick up some pound cake at the market. And of course a container of strawberries. Use the technique we used yesterday to keep your leftover berries fresh.

Squeeze some oranges for about 1/4 cup of juice. You can also used fresh squeezed orange juice that you have with breakfast. Pour the orange juice in a sauce pan. Gently simmer over a low flame. The juice will start to thicken and reduce.

This should take about 5-6 minutes. You’ll know when it’s done when it’s reduced by half the amount. Run a spoon through the liquid. It should leave a trail behind in the pan. This concentrates the citrus flavor, giving you a heightened orange flavor.

Allow to cool. Slice the pound cake into slices. Place on a plate, cut side down. Lightly brush or spoon the reduced orange juice evenly over the pound cake. Sprinkle with some granulated sugar. This gives the pound cake a little bit of a crunchy topping layered with the orange flavor. Slice strawberries and arrange on top.

When the guys were first eating strawberries, they liked the berries sliced, and placed on a plate vertically. We fanned them out to look like a strawberry mountain range. We called them strawberry mountains and the name has stuck.

To finish the presentation, for your dessert, grab some mint from the garden. See what your farmers’ market has to offer. There are different varieties of mint.  For this dessert, we like to use our orange mint to mirror the orange flavor in the juice reduction.

Try growing some mint. Pick out a variety and put it in a pot. Mint roots like to wander, so they have a tendency to choke neighboring plants. Some gardeners like the look of it in a border. You can bury the whole pot, mint and all, in the ground.

For a final touch, put some powered sugar in a strainer. Tap it over the pound cake and strawberries. A shower of powdered sugar makes anything look like the perfect dessert.