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Dessert

Shortcake Fillings

Fruit, honey and maple fillings and toppings for layering over shortcake crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Shortcake Fillings

Ingredients

Directions

Strawberries

  1. Leave out a few small berries or cut some of the smaller ones in halves or quarters and set aside. Save some of the largest and cut into halves, or leave whole with the stems on.

  2. Put a little butter into a granite pan, add berries with not too much sugar and a little salt. Crush over the fire with a wire potato masher just enough to make juicy.

  3. Mix well with butter, stir carefully until just warm.

  4. Add small berries, spread on crusts, place whole berries or cut halves cut side up on top.

  5. Serve shortcake at once on dessert tray or platter with a cluster of ferns or geranium or other green leaves at the side.

  6. Or, cut berries in small pieces just before serving, sprinkle crust with sugar mixed with a trifle of salt.

  7. Cover with berries and sprinkle with sugar, lay on upper crust and cover the same.

  8. Or, chop, not crush, berries with sugar and serve with sweetened juice of berries or with crushed strawberries sweetened, to be dipped over each slice as served.

Other fruits

  1. Raspberries: prepare and serve same as strawberries.

  2. Blueberries: stew berries with sugar and water, add a little lemon juice, a trifle of salt and thicken a little with corn starch.

  3. Peaches: cut into eighths or slice fresh ripe peaches just before serving. Lay them over thin crusts and sprinkle with sugar.

  4. Arrange pieces around the outside edge of the top crust and serve with nut or dairy cream.

  5. Or, stew halves of peaches in syrup, thicken syrup a little with corn starch and add a bit of butter. Lay peaches inside up on crusts and pour juice over.

  6. Juice may be delicately flavored with almond; a little lemon juice may be added.

  7. Apricots (fresh): prepare same as peaches.

  8. Apricots (dried): soak overnight, add 1-1½ cup sugar to 1 lb of fruit, heat slowly, just boil. Remove fruit and spread over cakes, leaving 1 qt of juice. Add ½ cup sugar and thicken with 4 level tablespns corn starch. Add 1 tablespn lemon juice and, if desired, 2 tablespns butter. Pour over shortcake, or preferably serve with it.

  9. Prunes: stew with a little sugar, stone, cut into small pieces and spread on crust. Thicken juice a trifle and turn over all.

  10. Honey: split and butter crust, spread thick with honey, serve hot.

  11. Maple: cook maple syrup and butter or cream together and serve warm over crust.

  12. Canned fruits of nearly all kinds may be used in winter for shortcakes by thickening the juice a little with corn starch.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

61Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
16 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, when stewed, dissolves to form a syrup that moistens the crust.
Corn starch (in the method)
Thickens the fruit juice into a glossy, spoonable sauce as it heats.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and a smooth fat note to the warm fruit and juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Thickening the juice with corn starch. Corn starch must be heated in the liquid to swell and thicken it. Undercooked starch leaves the juice thin and cloudy, while overheating can weaken its thickening power.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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