Orange Shortcake

This is a filling, not a full recipe: it assumes you already have a shortcake from elsewhere in the book's Bread section. The instructions leave out everything about handling citrus, which is where the dish succeeds or fails.

• The hinge: get rid of the membraneSliced oranges cut crosswise leave tough segment walls and pith running through every bite. Cut off the peel and white pith down to the flesh, then slice, or free the segments from the membranes entirely. It is the difference between a filling that eats like fruit and one that eats like packaging.
• Sweeten and waitSugar draws juice out of the fruit. Toss the slices with sugar and let them stand 20-30 minutes so the sweetening reaches the flesh rather than sitting on it, then drain most of the syrup off before filling.
• Assemble at the last minuteOrange slices give off a lot of thin juice that will turn a split biscuit to paste within minutes. Fill and cap the shortcake as it goes to the table, and spoon the reserved syrup over the top rather than into the middle.
• Bitterness in the pithWhite pith carries bitter compounds that come forward once sugar and time are involved, which is another reason to cut it away.
• What the shortcake wasA period shortcake in this section is most likely a rich baking-powder biscuit dough baked in a round and split hot, not sponge cake and not the sweet spongy cups sold in supermarkets.
• QuantityFigure three or four medium oranges and 2-3 tablespoons sugar for an eight-inch shortcake serving six. The original gives no amounts at all, so taste as you go.
• Worth addingA little grated zest returned to the sweetened fruit restores the aromatic oils lost when the peel is cut away, and lightly whipped cream between the layers buffers the biscuit against the juice.