Strawberries are in season and on sale in every shop. Our amazing British strawberries need no embellishment but if you’re looking for more ways to use them, here are a few ideas!

American strawberry shortcake – The classic American summer dessert. I’ve simplified this recipe from Waitrose.

Ingredients
250g self-raising flour
50g butter, diced
50g caster sugar
100-150ml milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C, gas mark 6. Lightly butter a 20cm-diameter cake tin with a removable base. Sieve the flour into a large bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and rosemary and stir in enough milk to draw the mixture into a soft dough. Knead briefly until smooth. Roll out lightly on a floured surface, and gently press evenly into the prepared tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until risen, firm to the touch and golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. Serve with heaps of sliced strawberries sweetened with caster sugar and whipped cream.

Strawberry jam – Try this dead-simple strawberry jam recipe from Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients
1 vanilla pod
1kg strawberries, washed and hulled
500g high pectin sugar (jam sugar)

Method
Slit the vanilla pod in half lengthways with a sharp knife and scrape down the length of each half to remove the seeds. Put the seeds in a bowl with the strawberries and the sugar. Mush up with the end of a whisk, making sure you leave some chunks of strawberry.

Pour the strawberry mixture into a saucepan and place on a medium heat. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Then turn the heat off, skim any foam or scum off the top of the jam and leave to cool a little. Pour into clean jam jars and allow to cool completely before covering and placing in the fridge. The jam will keep for about a week.

Strawberry ice cream – Nigella’s recipe looks amazing!

Ingredients
500g strawberries
175g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
500ml full-fat milk
500ml double cream
1 vanilla pod
10 egg yolks
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

1. Hull and roughly chop the strawberries, put them into a bowl and sprinkle over the 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and leave them to steep and infuse with flavour.
2. Pour the milk and cream into a heavy-based saucepan, and add the vanilla pod, split down the middle lengthways. Bring the pan nearly to the boil and then take it off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.
3. In a large bowl whisk the egg yolks and the 175g sugar until thick and pale yellow. Take the vanilla pod out of the milk and cream and pour, whisking the while, the warm liquid over the yolks. Put the cleaned-out pan back on the heat with the cream, milk, egg and sugar mixture and stir the custard until it thickens, then take it off the heat and pour it into a bowl to cool.
4. Purée the strawberries in a processor, and when the custard is cool fold in the lemon juice and strawberry purée.
5. At this point you can either freeze the ice cream in an ice-cream maker, or in a plastic tub in the freezer. If you do the latter you should whip it out every hour for 3 hours as it freezes and give it a good beating, either with an electric whisk, by hand or in the processer. That gets rid of any ice crystals that form and that make the ice cream crunchy rather than smooth.
ADDITIONAL INFO – Before you begin making the custard fill the sink half full with cold water. If you think the custard looks like splitting at any stage, plunge the pan into the cold water and whisk like mad.