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Orange Shortcake
M.
Make a nice shortcake; spread in layers of sliced oranges with sugar and a little cream. To be eaten with sweetened cream.
A four-line recipe that assumes you already know how to make shortcake. The gaps are worth filling, and the fruit needs more attention than the original gives it.
- Shortcake means biscuit doughIn an American book of this period, shortcake usually meant a rich biscuit dough — flour, butter, a little sugar, milk — baked as a round and split, rather than a sponge, though sweetened cake versions also circulated. The recipe gives no oven direction; a hot oven, roughly 425F for 15 to 20 minutes until the top is pale gold, is a modern reconstruction.
- "Layers"The intent is a split cake, or two thin rounds baked and stacked, with fruit between and on top. Split the hot cake with a fork rather than a knife so the crumb tears along its own seam.
- Preparing the orangesThe recipe says only 'sliced oranges' and leaves the method open. Cut away peel and white pith with a knife, then slice into rounds or cut free segments; the pith is bitter and the membrane goes tough against a soft crumb.
- Sugar and standing timeThe recipe specifies no quantity. Two to three tablespoons of sugar per four oranges, left 20 to 30 minutes, is a workable modern reading; sliced oranges give up less free juice than macerated strawberries, so allow the sugar time to draw out some syrup.
- "A little cream" versus "sweetened cream"The first is plain cream spooned over the fruit inside the cake; the second is the sauce at the table — heavy cream with a spoonful of sugar, poured rather than whipped stiff. Lightly whipped to a pourable ribbon suits modern taste and still holds.
- Assemble lateCitrus juice soaks into biscuit crumb quickly, so build it shortly before serving, while the cake is still warm.
- YieldA standard shortcake round with four to five oranges serves six to eight.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in 1874 by a committee of local women, with proceeds going to charity, and it is generally credited as one of the earliest American community cookbooks of its kind — the model that thousands of church and hospital fundraising books later followed. That explains the form of this entry: contributions were printed largely as submitted, signed with initials, and written by one experienced cook for another, so "make a nice shortcake" needed no elaboration. The orange in place of the usual strawberry is the interesting part. Shortcake was a summer fruit dish, but by the 1870s steam shipping was bringing Mediterranean oranges into northern cities through the winter, and it is tempting to suppose they were still enough of a treat to be worth building a dessert around out of season.