It would have made a good blog post for sure when they let me out of the loony bin finally. So for my sanity and the sake of keeping this blog from such an indulgent unnecessary hiatus (not to mention all the incoming boxes from going to waste) I ran the options through my head.
And oh there are options. There are the savory applications, grilled peaches, salsa, salad etc. And then the sweet delights, jam, ice-cream, sorbet, cake, crisp, buckle, pie and....cobbler. Oh yes cobbler, that odd dessert that is neither pie or crisp, nor anything else, but goes hand and hand with the word peaches.
Now, I have never made a cobbler before and I am not sure I have ever eaten one. But I knew they existed so a little bit of time on The Google Machine educated me as to its general structure. Like a crisp, in a cobbler the fruit lines the bottom of the pan and it is topped with what amounts to a sweet biscuit batter.
The first step is to peel and slice up the peaches. My research warned me that this would likely be the most difficult step in the cobbler since peaches, due to their structure, are not happily sliced.
The basic technique is to take a paring knife and cut around the meridian of the peach up to the pit. Then peel the peach carefully being sure you have a solid grip as those little sweeties tend to be slippery. Then, as though you were sectioning or supreming an orange, slice slices of the peach popping them off the pit as you go.
Yeah that's hard to explain in writing and the pictures don't quite capture it. Just watch this guy:
Upon peeling and slicing my peaches I found that one of them was....lets say, beyond ripe. This left me with 6 peaches rather than 7 peaches and 2 less then the recipe I was following. The solution, 3/4 the recipe. Keep this in mind. Spoiler alert.... I forget later on that I was 3/4ing the recipe.
Anyway, after mixing my peach slices with 3/4 of the Brown sugar, white sugar, fresh ground cinnamon and nutmeg, lemon juice, and corn starch. I poured it into a 2 quart baking dish and popped it into a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes. It did not take long for the smell of peaches and spices to permeate the apartment.
While that baked off, I got to work on the cobbler dough. As I said above, it's a little bit like biscuit dough with a sweet twist. The dough starts off by combining 3/4 of the required sugar (brown and white), flour, baking powder and salt. Then cut in 3/4 of the required butter. Cutting in butter means taking cold small pieces of butter and incorporating it into the flour until the flour takes on the texture of cornmeal. This can be achieved with a pastry cutter (a kitchen instrument designed specifically for this effort, relatively inexpensive and worth the purchase,) your fingers, a couple of forks, or a food processor. I started with my hands but when the butter, fresh from the freezer, proved too cold to work with I switched to my pastry cutter.
The final step is to add 3/4 of 1/4 of a cup of boiling water to the dough. this is where the dough digresses from a basic biscuit recipe to something different, biscuits always use cold dough to prevent the butter int eh dough from melting, keeping that butter from melting and creating a flaky dough.
This is the point where I forgot that I was 3/4thing the recipe and poured the full 1/4 cup into my perfectly measured dough. With a silent curse and a wonder aloud if I had just ruined the dish, I re-added in the 1/4 of ingredients I withheld and hoped I wasn't over mixing.
The penultimate step is to put globs of dough over the top of the boiling precooked fruit and cover with cinnamon sugar. I may, MAY have forgotten to read the recipe which called for "spoonfuls" and ended up with blob like islands over my fruit.
Anyway, it went into the oven unattended for 30 minutes where, because of my carelessness and distraction it promptly burned.
Ah well, a little a-la-mode, and the final result was ready for tasting:
THE VERDICT
Anyway, after mixing my peach slices with 3/4 of the Brown sugar, white sugar, fresh ground cinnamon and nutmeg, lemon juice, and corn starch. I poured it into a 2 quart baking dish and popped it into a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes. It did not take long for the smell of peaches and spices to permeate the apartment.
While that baked off, I got to work on the cobbler dough. As I said above, it's a little bit like biscuit dough with a sweet twist. The dough starts off by combining 3/4 of the required sugar (brown and white), flour, baking powder and salt. Then cut in 3/4 of the required butter. Cutting in butter means taking cold small pieces of butter and incorporating it into the flour until the flour takes on the texture of cornmeal. This can be achieved with a pastry cutter (a kitchen instrument designed specifically for this effort, relatively inexpensive and worth the purchase,) your fingers, a couple of forks, or a food processor. I started with my hands but when the butter, fresh from the freezer, proved too cold to work with I switched to my pastry cutter.
The final step is to add 3/4 of 1/4 of a cup of boiling water to the dough. this is where the dough digresses from a basic biscuit recipe to something different, biscuits always use cold dough to prevent the butter int eh dough from melting, keeping that butter from melting and creating a flaky dough.
This is the point where I forgot that I was 3/4thing the recipe and poured the full 1/4 cup into my perfectly measured dough. With a silent curse and a wonder aloud if I had just ruined the dish, I re-added in the 1/4 of ingredients I withheld and hoped I wasn't over mixing.
The penultimate step is to put globs of dough over the top of the boiling precooked fruit and cover with cinnamon sugar. I may, MAY have forgotten to read the recipe which called for "spoonfuls" and ended up with blob like islands over my fruit.
Anyway, it went into the oven unattended for 30 minutes where, because of my carelessness and distraction it promptly burned.
Ah well, a little a-la-mode, and the final result was ready for tasting:
THE VERDICT
Sweet heaven of peachy goodness this was delicious. Even with the sugar on top, shall we say, more than caramelized, this was an amazing dessert. The peaches were perfectly sweet and had a nice thick sauce associated with them. The dough on top was like a dense sweet cake. I was definitely in peachy heaven. My grandfather, actually called me an angel when I brought him a piece. The Husband.... doesn't like peaches. I know, right? Why did I marry him again?
The Recipe
The Recipe
Peaches
- 8 fresh peaches - peeled, pitted, and sliced into thin wedges
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 cup AP Flour
- 1//4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter chilled and cut into small pieces
- 1/4 cup boiling water
- 3 tablespoons white sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
- In a large bowl, combine peaches, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Toss to coat evenly, and pour into a 2 quart baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine flour, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Blend in butter with your fingertips, or a pastry blender, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in water until just combined.
- Remove peaches from oven, and drop spoonfuls of topping over them. Sprinkle entire cobbler with the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Bake until topping is golden, about 30 minutes.
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