Apple Foster Shortcakes | Baking Partners July

I love making short cakes. Or atleast I enjoyed making and consuming when I made my strawberry short (cup) cakes. I don't know much about the technicalities whether it is  perfectly turned out with this much width,diameter, height etc.The prep definitely takes less time and everything can be done under an hour or in other words you can fit these into your schedule which has a workout and badminton session and small small routine daily chores before your kid comes back from school @ 3.

So this time during the Baking Partners challenge short cakes were chosen by Reeni & Swathi I was more than happy and thought of a twist with apples which I had in hand rather than berries.The risk definitely paid off and I enjoyed the easy eggless short cakes adapted from KingArthur Flour, with caramelized apple in foster sauce. Now foster sauce is usually alcoholic and paired with bananas. But me being me went for a simpler apple version I found here.As usual I halved the recipe.

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour: 14 tbsp
Cornstarch: 2 tbsp

Salt: 3/8 tsp = 1/4 + 1/8 tsp
Baking Powder: 1.5 tsp
Sugar: 1-2 tsp (I went for 2)

Cream: 1/2 cup - 10 tbsp

Melted Butter: 1 tbsp

Coarse Sugar: to topping

Preparation:
Sift together flours, salt, baking powder and 2 tsp of sugar. You can use 1 cup of pastry flour against the mixed flours. I used the substitute mentioned in the recipe.

Add enough heavy cream to moisten the dough. I used 25% Amul cream and it worked well.

Turn the dough into a lightly floured surface and pat it into a 4" circle about 3/4" thick.Using a 2.5" biscuit cuter cut into rounds. Combine the scraps and roll out again until you get 5 rounds.

Dip these into melted butter and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with coarse sugar.

Bake in a preheated oven at 210 C or 425F for 15-20 minutes or until puffy and golden brown. Take out and cool for a bit while you make the foster sauce.

Apple Foster:
Apples: 1 atleast Peeled and sliced.

Unsalted Butter: 2 tbsp

Demerara/ Brown Sugar: 2-4 tbsp based on sweetness preferred
Cinnamon: 1/4 tsp
Salt: very small pinch (Omit if using salted butter)

Cornstarch: 1/4 tsp heaped
Water Or Apple juice: 4 tbsp

Melt Butter in a pan and saute apple slices in it. Cook until fork tender for a few minutes. Add the sugar,cinnamon  and salt and cook until the sugar starts melting for another minute. Mix together water/juice with corn starch and add into this. Cook stirring until thickened for few more minutes. Take off heat and cool which might thicken it more.

Apple Short Cake:

Split each shortcake horizontally. Place  one half / bottom on the serving plate. Top with apple slices and little liquid/sauce onto the cake. Top with the other half and serve topped with whipped cream/ icecream. Drizzle sauce atop the cream before serving.

Delicious and yummy Apple Foster Short cake is ready to serve. Dig on.. BTW Lets see who all enjoyed their yummy shortcake challenge