Shortcakes With Peaches & Lemon

Shortcake is a sweet English biscuit. These are great to serve when friends are coming over because you can prepare all things in advance!

Because the butter is cold while you make the dough and you don’t over-knead it, the shortcake will get a tender & flaky end result.

I chose peaches for the compote. But there are plenty of other fruits that will complete these biscuits such as strawberries, raspberries or rhubarb.

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Ready for the oven

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Ingredients (for 8 small pieces or 6 big):

·       300 g all-purpose flour

·       1½ teaspoon baking powder

·       ¼ teaspoon baking soda

·       55 g sugar

·       1½ teaspoon kosher salt

·       1 lemon (for zeste)

·       120 g cold unsalted butter

·       100 g sour cream

·       100 ml cream (30%)

Peaches compote:

·       3 ripe peaches (cut into cubes)

·       60 g brown sugar

·       1/2 Lemon

·       1/2 teaspoon vanilla (use the powder instead of aroma)

·       pinch of salt

Topping:

·       Full fat quark (3%)

·       Honey (optional)

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Directions:

1.     Preheat the oven at 200°C

2.     Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in a large bowl to combine.

3.     Finely grate zest of about half of 1 lemon into the bowl.

4.     Cut the cold butter into small cubes (1-2 cm) and toss with dry ingredients until coated. Work butter into dry ingredients by pinching and rubbing it between your palms (work quick here, the butter should not melt!). The mixture must look like coarse crumbs. So this doesn’t have to be 1 homogenous dough.

5.     Combine the sour cream and cream in a medium bowl. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Scrape cream mixture into well. With a rubber spatula, mix this mass very briefly until 1 dough.

6.     Transfer to a lightly floured surface. Using your hands, make 1 thick square. Cut this in 4 and stack them all on top of each other, creating one tall tower of dough. Press down with your hands. This makes sure you will get lot’s of flaky layers when you eat them.

7.     Again, make 1 thick dough and cut in 8 (for small) or 6 (for big) pieces.

8.     Transfer the pieces to a prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle tops with sugar & brush with some cream. Freeze this for 10 minutes.

9.     While the shortcakes are in the freezer you can make the compote: Simply put all the ingredients (except the lemon) in a pan on medium heat and let this simmer 10-15 minutes until it thickens. Add your lemon juice & zeste. Let this cool down.

10.  Bake the shortcakes in the oven for 20 (8 pieces)–25 (for 6 pieces) minutes until golden brown.

11.  Serve this with a dollop of quark (or whipped cream) & honey.