Gooseberry Shortcake

This one doesn't have a number because it never made it to work. 

The gooseberries were ripe enough to pick last week.  Mr B had to pick them while I was at work and I came home on Friday to find a bowl of them in the fridge.  They were ripe enough to eat just like that but I managed to restrain myself.

Last year I ate them straight off the bush.  The bush is right next to the bee-hive, but with only one beehive that wasn't really a problem; they were extremely well behaved bees.  This year we have 4 beehives at the end of the garden, and at least 2 of them have a tendency to stroppiness.  At least the gooseberry bushes are well guarded by day.

Shortcake

4 oz butter
4 oz sugar
2 beaten eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar, add eggs, then sifted flour and baking powder.  Roll holf of the dough to fit a 9 inch diameter straight sided cake tin.  At this point I put the base in the oven (170 - 180 degrees C) while I roll out the top half.  That bit of extra cooking avoids the soggy-base risk once the fruit goes on.

Anyway - top that with a generous layer of stewed fruit sweetened to taste, or fresh berry fruit (works well with backberries, gooseberries etc) uncooked, and some sugar.  Put the other half of dough on top (I roll it out between two layers of plastic wrap, peel off the top, tip it onto the pie and then peel the second bit off.)

20 minutes to half an hour in the 170-180 degree oven.  Serve hot with cream, or cold in slices as a cake.

Pre-cooked fruit will give you a nice rounded top, the bumps come with using fresh uncooked fruit.....