I am posting this a bit late and I've only done half a job but I'm really thrilled with this. I made a shortcake in a flan tin and I can fill it with fresh fruit and it will be beautiful. A few short weeks ago, I would never even have attempted such a thing. Now look at this. I'm very proud. I'm also trying to distract you from the fact that it's half completed. I managed to squeeze this baking in just before my oven was dismantled to be replaced with the new one. It was a bit of a rush job and I didn't quite think through the final stages. Furthermore, it is winter here in Canberra and summer fruits are not particularly abundant or cheap. I priced Raspberries at $10 a punnet and strawberries at $4 a punnet. I'd probably need about three punnets to fill the flan. So, I may look for other options to feed my family. I could probably put a creme anglaise in the base and then top it with kiwi fruit and passionfruit and maybe some dried cranberries that I found at the local markets.
The picture of Rose's Red Fruit Shortcake is beautiful in the cookbook and Marie's version on the original Heaveny Cake bakers site is also stunning, so for now you'll have to content yourself with these photos.
As part of making the shortcake you need to know what size your flan tin is, then you either make the White Gold Passion Genoise batter or the Genoise Rose batter. I did the latter. Making the genoise was very like the process undertaken for the chocolate cake in the Raspberry Trifle. However, it has an additional step - making beurre noisette, which I gather is like a browned (not quite burnt) clarified butter. You put the butter in a heavy saucepan and heat it until the milk solids are brown and then you strain it and discard the browned bits of butter, leaving a clarified butter (which I know from Indian cooking as Ghee - though even thinking of Indian cooking in the middle of baking delicate cakes is a bit weird). Beurre noisette is probably a french baking technique and if I knew my french cooking better I'd have other associations in my mind ....anyway...
After making the beurre noisette, you put it to the side, then make the Genoise batter which is warmed eggs whipped until light and fluffy and much increased in volume and general fluffiness.
To the butter you add a little bit of the egg mixture to lighten it.
Then you add the flour to the egg mixture and then the lightened butter to the egg mixture and voila - genoise batter.
This is then "escorted to the flan tin" (stealing the words of the Indian chef Korma dasa - can't stop with the mixed brain cooking metaphors). It looked a bit full.
It came out beautifully and now I just need to find some seasonal fruit.
