From Scratch

Just as some people await the sight of the first robin as a harbinger of spring, I anticipate the first bags of wonderful cranberries as a sign autumn has arrived. And it has. It’s like a holiday here.

Cranberries are one of my favorite foods. They’re tart, healthful, low in calories; frankly, with all that good stuff going on, I’m kind of surprised how much I love them. But I do, and have all my life. As a nation, one of our favorite summer desserts is strawberry shortcake, but there’s no reason to limit ourselves to summer if we think outside the box.

This came about after reading some favorite old recipes and thinking of toying with a pie filling I make to use as a shortcake topping. I happened to be munching on dried cranberries covered with dark chocolate. That’s when I remembered some chocolate shortcake recipes; I adapted mine from one at Epicurious and while it uses an unusual method, there’s a similar one at Fine Cooking. It uses whipped cream in place of butter, which makes sense. If you overwhip cream, you get butter. Heavy cream, my preference, is full of butterfat - a minimum of 36% - and it’s actually better for making whipped cream than cream labeled “whipping cream”, at 30-36% fat. Heavy cream whips faster and holds up better. (For the fat content of various dairy products, see here at the Cook’s Thesaurus, which is on the Useful Links page.)

It’s also an unusual dough to handle and I’ve re-written the directions with more description of what to expect. It’s a little effort but produces a shortcake that has some characteristics of a brownie, and both components can be made ahead. I think this is a scrumptious, eye-catching dessert and I don’t mind admitting I had mine with milk.

Ella’s Cran-Apple Chocolate Shortcake

Sauce
2 cups cranberries /8 oz/220g
1/3 cup (3 oz) apple juice
2 medium cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin (2 cups)
2/3 cup (5 oz/140g) cup sugar
1 TB cornstarch
1/2 cup (4 oz) apple juice

Place cranberries and the 1/3 cup apple juice in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stirring frequently, bring to a boil — the cranberries will have begun to pop – stir in the apples, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered, stirring from time to time, about 5 minutes, until apples have softened.

Mix together the sugar and cornstarch. Add to the apple mixture, stir to blend, then add the 1/2 cup of juice and stir well. Raise the heat just a bit and cook, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil and thickens. Keep it at the boil and cook, stirring, for one more minute. Remove from heat. It will thicken more as it cools.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Can be made 8 hours ahead.

Shortcakes

1 1/4 cups/5.5 oz/155g all-purpose flour
1/2 cup/2 oz/56g non-alkalized cocoa, such as Hershey’s
1/2 cup/3.5 oz/205g sugar
1 TB baking powder
1/8 tsp table salt
1 cup/8 oz cold heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400F/205C/Gas mark 6. Spray or line a baking sheet with parchment. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Whip the cream and vanilla until firm peaks form. Add the whipped cream to the dry ingredients and stir until you have a mixture that is clumped and moist when you pinch bits of it together, but remains crumbly.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and, with your hands, bring everything together, gently working and kneading it until you have ball. Pat dough into a rectangle about 9″ x 5″ and a thickness of 3/4″.  With a bench knife or kitchen knife, cut into six portions and transfer to the baking sheet. Alternatively, use a 3″ cutter, re-patting scraps as needed.

Bake about 15 minutes, till crinkly on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack and leave at room temperature until needed, up to 6 hours in advance. Store leftovers airtight.

Assemble and serve with whipped cream, if you wish, or a sprinkling of powdered sugar. (If you really want to gild the lily, whip 1/4 cup of cream with 1/4 tsp of almond extract and 1/4 - 1/2 tsp cinnamon. I would have, but I had no cream left.)

Ella’s notes: I prefer the sauce — a variation of a pie filling — at room temp. If you make the filling first and cut the apples by hand, just flip over the cutting board and use that for the shortcake dough. Every cutting board has two sides so you might as well use it twice and clean it once. With the shortcakes, you might wish to lightly flour your hands before kneading the dough and if you whip the cream in a stand mixer, get that going first and assemble the dry ingredients while the machine does its work.  I used one Paula Red apple and one crisp Cameo, slicing the Cameo thinner so they would cook evenly.

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Related: Exonerating Apple Juice

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Tags: apples, cranberries