Strawberry grilled cheese sandwiches
June 2nd, 2010
Hey guys!
I missed this. Furey & the Feast is back, kinda, albeit with technical difficulties and all kinds of editorial dysfunction. (Where did the time go?) The redesign still in the works, but hey, we’ll go ahead as planned. An FAQ will be posted later this week explaining some of the editorial changes. In the meantime, if you think it looks exactly the same in here as it did before, well, you’re right. But we’re working through the chaos backstage, and it’ll happen, I promise!
So without further ado, here’s this week’s recipe. The following is from my Food 101 column in The Orange County Register: a sweet take on the classic grilled cheese sandwich. For best results, serve it with ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce — or all of the above — and a tall glass of Champagne.
GRILLED CHEESE GOES SWEET
Do you remember the first time you tasted a grilled cheese sandwich? I do – and it wasn’t pretty. My childhood experience consisted of two cellophane-wrapped slices of that ubiquitous neon cheese, sandwiched between white bread, all of which was promptly nuked in the microwave for a handful of seconds until the cheese had melted. What resulted wasn’t quite a “grilled cheese” as it was a soggy, gooey mass, bordered by a rigid crust that only a superhero could munch through.
It had my mouth watering every single time.
Of course, back then, I was easier to please. Anything made with processed cheese was welcome to my hungry belly. But when I eventually tasted a real grilled cheese, there was no turning back to this microwaved monstrosity. That crisp, buttery bread; the way the warm, creamy cheddar sticks to the roof of your mouth when you take your first bite. In those lunchtime or dinner moments, there are few things in the world that are simpler and more satisfying than a classic grilled cheese sandwich. Unless, of course, you have one for dessert.
This dessert grilled cheese still has all of the typical grilled cheese components, though in different forms: Angel food cake stands in for regular bread, brie takes the place of American cheddar cheese, and balsamic strawberries are added to sweeten the sandwich up even more. If you’re not making angel food cake from scratch, you can buy it pre-made from your local supermarket. Some markets will carry “angel food bars” which are essentially loaves, and these are easier to slice into uniform pieces than the characteristic ringed cakes. Angel food cake also grills beautifully, and because of its small crumb, yields an even golden-brown crust. Flexing your creative muscles can be very, very delicious.
For this recipe, you’ll need is a nonstick frying pan, a non-metal spatula and a pastry brush, the latter to use with the melted butter. If you don’t have a pastry brush, you can always blot the butter onto the cake with a paper towel. Just be gentle, and make sure you cover the slice’s entire surface.








Just some horn-tooting on my end here: My recipe for ginger-scented chicken broth was chosen as a finalist by the editors of Food 52. It’s the same broth I made for the Vietnamese-inspired chicken and rice soup from 





