Recipes for using the first strawberries of spring

With the first couple heat waves of winter under our belt, the beginning of March is feeling very “spring-y” already. And another harbinger of that feeling is seeing the first strawberries of the season. Sure, berries are available in Southern California mostly all year round, but I always abstain from eating them from the beginning of October until their glorious return in early March.

And while the super ripe and juicy ones that come later in the season and summer are best eaten raw, I love to use these early specimens for baking, bridging that winter-to-spring divide while I still feel like turning on my oven. Here are some great recipes that I’ll be trying out with the first couple of pints I pick up at the market.

I love these Vegan Muffins from Go Get Em Tiger, and the fact that they have fresh chunks of strawberry suspended in their batter makes them even more delightful. This will be my breakfast for the foreseeable future.

For another kinda-breakfast treat, I love Genevieve Ko’s Strawberry Shortcake Cookies, which eat like tiny strawberry biscuits. A couple of them warm from the oven with a cup of coffee in the morning, or afternoon, always improves my mood.

For a solid shortcake idea, I love these Rye Shortcakes because their whole-grain-ness balances all the rich whipped cream and butter nicely. The fruit also is a great mix for this time of year: more or less equal parts sweet-tart spring strawberries and sweet-floral winter citrus.

This Vintage Strawberry Pie from Roxana Jullapat is very homey and comforting. A flaky, buttery pastry crust holds in a ton of berries that are lightly sweetened and bound softly with a little gelatin and cornstarch into a beautiful, glistening red gel. Simplicity at its finest.

And, to keep on hand if we get another heat wave, I make this simple Strawberry Sorbet sweetened with sugar and balanced with a whole lemon, based on the iconic recipe from the River Cafe in London. A few scoops into a glass and a glug of ginger ale makes for a refreshing drink to help think of warmer, summer-strawberry days ahead.

Vegan Strawberry Muffins

Strawberry runs through these super-soft muffins with swirls of jam in the batter and fresh-cut fruit on top. Coconut oil and macadamia milk bring richness to the two-bowl batter, which comes together quickly and bakes into muffins that taste delicious whether or not you’re vegan.
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Cook time: 1 hour

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Toasted on top and tender in the center, these buttery cookies are packed with juicy strawberries. For an even crunchier top, sprinkle with sanding or coarse raw sugar.
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Cook time: 45 minutes

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Rye Shortcakes With Strawberry-Mandarinquat Compote and Citrus Labneh

When strawberries are small and young, their leaves are still tiny and tender. Keep them on the berries for both aesthetics and the earthy taste they impart that balances the sweet fruit and rich biscuit.
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Cook time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Vintage Strawberry Pie

This may be the quickest pie filling you can make. For the easy pie dough, be sure to keep the butter cold, and when adding it to the flour, toss the cubes to coat them with it before cutting them in. Also, chill the dough before rolling it out and again before baking to keep it together well.
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Cook time: 1 hour

Strawberry Lemonade Sorbet Floats

Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of the River Cafe in London devised this ingenious method for making sorbet using a whole lemon — peel and all. You might think the lemon flavor would be too intense, but when combined with ripe berries, it tastes just like frozen strawberry lemonade.
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Cook time: 15 minutes, plus chilling and freezing