A Celebration of Strawberries

It is finally here! It is officially strawberry season in North Carolina. We had to wait a couple extra weeks due to a few cold snaps. But it was worth the wait. The berries are huge, sweet and oh so delicious.

Our local fields officially opened last week, and we are on our second gallon bucket of berries already. They have been eaten straight out of the bucket, some have topped oatmeal, and others went on top of ice cream. But that still leaves lots of berries waiting for other yummy recipes.

Last week, we took a shopping trip to Wegman’s and bought their delicious New York bagels and a tub of strawberry schmear, the Yiddish term for cream cheese spread. The bagels were amazing with the schmear, but the little tub barely covered 7 of the 8 bagels. The tub of cream cheese spread we purchased was also over $3. It got me thinking about making our own schmear at home, so that’s exactly what I did this week.

You could, of course, make many other cream cheese spreads at home, but strawberries are clearly the belles of the ball right now. All you need is 2 packages of cream cheese or my preferred Neufchâtel cream cheese, a bit of heavy whipping cream and some powdered sugar. And of course, fresh strawberries.

I prefer Neufchâtel cream cheese because it is 1/3 less fat and naturally softer, allowing it to blend better into dips and such. But regular cream cheese is just as good as well.

A note about my strawberries – as I said, they are huge. Like, as-big-as-the-palm-of-your-hand big. If you have smaller berries, feel free to use more than 10 for your schmear.

Place the ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer, and begin to mix slowly at first. Stop occasionally to push the berries off the sides of the bowl and scrape the bottom of the bowl. Increase speed and mix until you get the desired consistency you are looking for.

If you have the time, allow the schmear to sit in the fridge overnight in an airtight container. This allows the strawberry flavor to blend even better. If you can’t wait overnight, that’s fine, too.

My recipe makes a LOT of schmear. You will have enough for your bagels and you can use it as a fruit dip for more berries, pineapple, or whatever fruit you have on hand. It is also a great dip for graham crackers and pretzels. Really, the uses of this schmear are only limited by your own imagination. If you don’t want that much, you can halve the recipe. Store the cream cheese spread in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Making our own schmear was very easy and more economical than running back to Wegman’s for more and it is just as delicious. I do hope to experiment with more flavors in the future.

If you live in a part of the country that isn’t lucky enough to have fresh local berries yet, you can use frozen strawberries, or even freeze-dried berries. We can’t wait to try it with other fresh fruits soon.