In the gentle rhythm of grief, our hands remember what our hearts cannot yet speak. Today, I share with you not just a recipe, but a sacred vessel of memory—strawberry shortcake cookies that carry the essence of my beloved sister Heather, who crossed to the spirit world on February 18, 2023. The circle of seasons has turned, yet her absence creates a space that no passage of time can fill.

Heather was not merely my sister but my soul’s companion—the keeper of our shared childhood secrets, the echo of my laughter, the witness to my becoming. Her spirit danced with a lightness that infected everyone around her. The character “Strawberry Shortcake” adorned her childhood sanctuary, painting her world in hopeful pinks and verdant greens. I can still feel the texture of her bedspread beneath my fingertips, hear the whispers of our late-night conversations beneath those whimsical characters watching over us.

What began as childhood sisterhood blossomed into something rare and precious as we journeyed into adulthood together. Our bond grew roots that reached deeper with each passing year—where once we shared toys, we later shared dreams; where once we whispered secrets beneath blanket forts, we later held space for each other’s deepest wounds and greatest triumphs. She became my anchor, my mirror, my first call with any news. In Heather, I found not just family given by blood, but my chosen companion for life’s most sacred moments. She knew the language of my silences and danced with me through both shadow and light. In every sense that matters, she was my person—the one who held the map to all the hidden chambers of my heart.

These cookies emerged from the fertile soil of mourning—a creation born not despite grief, but because of it. Each ingredient chosen with intention, each step in the process a meditation on what remains when someone beloved returns to the elements. When I share these treats with family and friends, I witness a beautiful alchemy—how taste can unlock memory, how food becomes ceremony, how my hands can recreate a small piece of her spirit that others can now hold.

This recipe yields 12 complete sandwich cookies—circles of wholeness that speak to the cycle of life returning to itself. Should you wish to serve them open-faced, displaying the brilliant ruby filling and cloud-like cream, you’ll have 24 individual cookies, each one a canvas for sharing Heather’s story with those gathered at your table.

Ingredients

For the Cookie Embrace:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened under morning sunlight
• 1 cup sugar, sweet as childhood promises
• 1 large egg from hens who know open skies
• 1 tbsp lemon zest, bright as her laugh
• 2 tsps vanilla extract, warm as her presence
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, foundation of transformation
• 1 tsp baking powder, to help us rise through sorrow
• ½ tsp baking soda, catalyst of change
• ½ tsp salt, tears crystallized into seasoning

For the Strawberry Heart:

• 1 lb strawberries, chopped like fragments of memory
• ¼ cup sugar to sweeten what’s bitter
• 1 tsp ground cardamom, her favorite spice that connected us to ancestors unknown
• 1 tbsp cornstarch, binding what threatens to fall apart
• ½ tsp vanilla extract, echoing comfort

For the Cream’s Embrace:

• 1 can vanilla buttercream, pillowy as clouds in stories we told
• 1 cup powdered sugar, fine as the boundary between worlds
• 2 tbsps orange blossom water, carrying whispers from gardens we’ll never walk together

Sacred Steps of Creation

1. Invoke the Fire: Begin by calling forth warmth—preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare your baking sheet with parchment paper, a clean canvas for memory-making.
2. Create the Foundation: With intentional movements, cream butter and sugar together until they transform—light and airy as Heather’s spirit. Add the egg, lemon zest, and vanilla extract, binding life, brightness, and depth.
3. Honor the Elements: In separate vessel, gather the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt—earth elements that provide structure to our remembering. Gradually marry these with your butter mixture, mixing until just united, like stories woven together.
4. Form Sacred Circles: With reverent hands, shape the dough into small rounds—each one a universe of memory. Place them onto prepared parchment and send them into the transformative heat for 10-12 minutes, until edges turn golden like sunset.
5. Craft the Heart Center: While the cookies embrace fire’s transformation, tend to the strawberries—Heather’s emblem. Combine them with sugar, cardamom, and cornstarch in your medicine pot. Stir with intention as they release their essence and thicken with heat’s magic. Remove from flame and add vanilla’s comfort. Allow this heart medicine to cool completely.
6. Whip the Ethereal: In your largest bowl, transform cream into clouds, adding sweetness and floral waters that connect us to gardens beyond this world. Whip until it holds peaks strong enough to carry memory.
7. Unite the Elements: When all has cooled and settled, create small altars of remembrance—strawberry heart medicine upon one cookie, crowned with cloud cream, sealed with another cookie above. Each sandwich a complete circle, like life returning to itself.
8. Share the Medicine: Offer these immediately or keep them sacred in a sealed container, though their magic is strongest in the first two days after creation.

As your hands recreate this ceremony of remembrance, may you feel the threads that connect us all—to those we’ve lost, to the earth that holds their bodies, to the traditions that carry us through sorrow. These cookies remind us that even when grief washes over us like winter storms, spring’s sweetness will return, carried in unexpected vessels.

May you taste not just sugar and fruit, but the eternal truth that love transforms but never truly leaves us. In each bite, Heather’s spirit dances still—a reminder that our beloved ones become part of everything we create after they’re gone.