Peach Shortcake
The Summer of 2024, so eagerly anticipated, flew by faster than any other. And was less fun. Between Bubby's transition from school, a prolonged heat wave, patio construction, and friends returning to their post-pandemic lives, we've had fewer gatherings and there have been less opportunities to bake things.
And for me, in my scant free time I've been focusing more on my watercolor painting than on my baking and cake decorating.
But when Grandpa called for an end-of-Summer family gathering, I remembered that several times lately he's talked about wanting Peach Shortcake. I didn't need to think too hard about what to make for this one!
I turned to this recipe for Strawberry Shortcake from Preppy Kitchen. According to my notes, I made it for Father's Day in 2020 and I labeled it "Best Recipe". This time I compared it to other shortcake recipes, such as this one that I found online. But I went with my impressions from the previous time.
Our get together was on Sunday and I shopped for peaches on Thursday night. I bought 5 peaches that felt near-ripe and put them in the refrigerator. Separately I bought 4 large organic peaches that were very firm, and put them in a paper bag in the cupboard to ripen up.
I decided to make the shortcake early on Sunday morning before hitting the road. The recipe from Preppy Kitchen came together quickly and the dough was very easy to work with.
The recipe I used was printed in 2019 and has since been modified. Here are the modifications:
- Baking powder: 1.5 tbsp in 2019 vs 1 tbsp in 2024
- Baking soda: 1/4 tsp in 2019 vs 1/2 tsp in 2024
- Buttermilk: 1 cup in 2019 vs 1 1/4 cups in 2024
- Vanilla: None in 2019 vs 1 tsp in 2024
- Heavy cream: 1/4 cup in 2019 vs none in 2024
- Baking temperature: 420F in 2019 vs 425F in 2014
I did use the recipe amounts from 2019 but even back then I had written down to bake them at 425. I must have gotten the different oven temperature from John Kanell's videos, where recipe directions aren't always the same as on his blog. Since my oven's been running a bit hot, I baked them at 420F.
I brushed the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream and sprinkled them with a bit of sugar.
I used my orange 3-inch round cutter for some of the biscuits and my blue 3.25-inch cutter for others. I also reshaped the scraps and made one very large and one small biscuit. In all I got a total of 9 biscuits, and yes they ended up being different sizes. I actually don't think anyone noticed once the shortbreads were put together, because I didn't use the very small or the very large one.
I used the smooth edge on these round cutters.
The previous time I made these biscuits I wrote down that I baked them for 25-30 minutes. When I checked them at 15 minutes and 20 minutes, they still looked pale. I ended up leaving them in the oven for 30 minutes.
Next, the peaches. I was horrified to discover that after 2 days in a paper bag in the cupboard, the firm organic peaches had mold growing on them. I had been careful to separate them so they wouldn't touch each other, but that wasn't enough to prevent mold growing. Still, the moldy parts were small so we thought we would cut the off and macerate the rest of the peaches. But all 4 peaches, though they still felt firm on the outside, were bruised and brown on the inside. They were unusable and had to be thrown out!
Costco sliced peaches saved the day!
We decided to take the 5 non-organic peaches to Grandpa's house and supplement them with a jar of Kirkland sliced peaches from Costco. And a good thing we did too, because when we sliced the 5 ripe peaches they also were bruised, brown and not suited for consumption. I was able to salvage a half a peach, which I diced and macerated with sugar and some Cointreau.
For lunch we had shrimp cocktail, rotisserie chicken, R's delicious home-made coleslaw, rosemary potatoes, fresh corn, yellow and red tomato slices.
Now it was time to put the shortbreads together. I'd bought a pint of whipping cream and used 4 tablespoons for the shortbreads plus more for brushing on top before baking. So I must have had at least 1.5 cups of heavy cream left. I used it all for the whipped cream and could still have used more! And that's with only 6 servings of shortbread to prepare! I sliced the shortbreads, spooned a generous serving of whipped cream on the base of each, and placed 3 peach slices on each. I then added a dollop more whipped cream on top and distributed what diced macerated peaches I had to complete the plate.
As for the feedback, Grandpa is always complimentary and praises things for not being too sweet. But he having the largest serving didn't eat the top of his shortbread and I ended up throwing it away when I cleared his plate. SIL and her husband never finish their servings and I heard on comment from them. My own family ate all of our servings, and I thought mine was very good but I wished I had more peach and more whipped cream. Later I asked R what he thought and he said the shortcakes were a bit dry. That wasn't my first impression, but I could see how he might have thought that. Although shortcake is a sweet dry biscuit, I think next time I'll raise the oven temperature to 425, cut them all the same size, and leave them in the oven for 15 minutes.
All's well that ended well with the Peach Shortcakes, not the best dessert in the world this time, but not bad either and Grandpa got to taste them. The next morning I had one with coffee, and nothing on it because there was no jam to spread, and it was just fine as well.
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