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The Last Cobbler

Matt — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:38:41 +0000

In a few days I’ll be hopping on another plane to a place that promises lots of good food, relaxation, sunshine and wine. It’s a trip we’ve been planning for a while, but what I wasn’t planning on was real life enveloping the weeks before and after this excursion. In this case real life means work, and work means travel, and that means I’ll be up in the air and away from home for many weeks. When I return it will no longer be summer but early fall and I can’t help but feel slightly Rip Van Winkelish about the whole damn thing.

I’ve managed to cram quite a bit of summer in the past few weeks. Dinners outdoors with best friends, long walks in the muggy streets of NYC with my blogging family, even one last hurrah at our house just the other night dedicated to the bounty of figs. Summer is my favorite season and I just don’t like to see it ending, footstomp footstomp footstomp!

(But trust me, I’ll think I’ll be ok drinking wine in Nice with this man and indulging in rioja-induced tapas crawls of marathon proportions in Spain with the hubs)

As a symbolic gesture I picked up stone fruit at the farmers’ market the other day, knowing that it could very likely be the last peach or plum I would buy and cook with at home for some time. Of course I’m looking forward to what’s around the corner but saying goodbye to stone fruit always leaves me a bit melancholy. What better way to throw it a little party than by making a cobbler. I am a Certified Cobbler Freak and it almost doesn’t matter what kind either. I don’t think anyone can go wrong with warm fruit, topping and the required scoop of ice cream. You just can’t.

I have my standard recipes for cobbler but we felt like doing something a bit different. A quick search online turned up Aida Mollenkamp’s recipe which sounded good. Little did I know it would actually turn out GREAT.

Do you know Aida? Do you watch her show on Cooking Channel? She brings a smile to my face everytime I think of her, and she’s even funnier and sillier in person. Not that I’m calling her silly, mind you. It’s just being around her makes me feel good. I do love that woman somethin’ fierce.

I’m glad that my last homemade cobbler of the summer went out with a bang. I suspect I’ll be making this cobbler for years, too. In my version I tweaked it just a bit, punctuating the wonderfully mellow peaches with tart dried cherries from my trip to Michigan. It was a match made in heaven. Speaking of heaven, those fluffy clouds of sour cream biscuits on top? Yea, they made this dish. It’s all about those biscuits.

Peach and Tart Cherry Cobbler with Sour Cream Biscuits adapted from a recipe by Aida Mollenkamp

Biscuits:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen
¼ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Filling
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped, seeds reserved
1 ½ pounds fresh peaches, pitted and cut into sixths
1 cup of dried tart cherries (you can find them here)

Topping
2 teaspoons sour cream
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375˚ F and arrange a rack in the middle.

For the Biscuits: Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk to blend thoroughly.

With a large box grater, grate the frozen butter into the flour mixture using the large holes and then toss to coat. Smear in the sour cream and heavy cream and knead until the dough comes together with your hands. Divide into six pieces and flatten into disks; cover and reserve in the fridge.

For the fruit filling: In a large bowl, mix together flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and vanilla seeds. Add peaches and dried cherries and mix until the fruit is evenly coated.

Put the fruit mixture into a 2-quart baking dish and top with the biscuit dough evenly across the top.

To Assemble: Brush the tops of the biscuits with sour cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until the filling is bubbling, the peaches are tender when pierces with a knife and the biscuits are golden brown and cooked through, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool before serving. Serve with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Summer Fest Week 2: Fruits From Trees!

Matt — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:48:23 +0000

This is week two in our amazingly fun Summer Fest! Thanks to everyone who left comments, all your amazing suggestions and tips have been so priceless! For more on how this all works visit my post last week here and remember to leave comments here and on your blog as well as the other hosts. And feel free to grab the Summer Fest icon, I made it for you!

One of the world’s greatest rap songs ever written happens to include a micro-ode to summer’s most delightful gems:

“Take a Peach
Take a Plum
Take A Piece Of Bubble Gum
No Peach
No Plum
No Piece Of…
Supersonic”

–JJ Fad’s Supersonic, 1988.

While I do love bubblegum and Supersonic, I just happen to love peaches and plums a wee bit more. And as part of Summer Fest 2009 we’re talking about stone fruit–all those delicious summer peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, as well as the recent hybrids like angelcots and pluots and all the other ots.

I am blessed with a mini-grove of fruit trees planted by Adam’s grandmother back in the late 1950s. The nectarine and apricot trees hang out all year long, keep the giant orange tree company until their summer shift begins. They clock in, put on some leaves, and get to work churning out buds and later fat ripe fruit that I can barely keep up with. When we are up to our eyeballs in stone fruit (I’m sure it’s a ploy to distract us), they quickly sneak off, clock out and take an 11-month break. Heck, they deserve it.

Because of the abundance they produce I’ve been able to indulge in a variety of stone fruit recipes. I’ve made cobblers, cakes, ice creams, sorbets, salsas, marinades, just about anything that I felt was in line with my skill level. Some were successes (cobblers and ice creams) while others were failures (a few salsas just never got the balance right). But if I need to use a large amount of nectarines or apricots I can think of nothing better than cobblers. Or even ice cream which never really lasts that long at my home anyway. And I know what you’re thinking right now, you want to tell me about canning and preserving. Go ahead, I’ll let you. But I’ve never canned a thing in my life and the thought is quite daunting.

Maybe next year?

Like last year I’ve made a few cobblers as well as my pal David’s Apricot Ice Cream. And I love this ice cream. Creamy, rich, with that slight tang (is that what it is?) of the apricots. And just so you know, this ice cream makes amazing milkshakes.

David says if you’re lucky enough to find a bounty of fresh summer apricots then you must take advantage of them–their season is far too short. Next year I’m inviting you over and you can have as many as you want!

Apricot Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 pound squishy-ripe fresh apricots (10 to 16, depending on size)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
3 drops almond extract
a few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

Slice open the apricots and remove the pits, then cut each apricot into sixths. Cook the apricot pieces with the water in a covered medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat until tender, about 8 minutes, and stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Let cool to room temperature.

Once cool, purée the apricots and any liquid in a blender or food processor until smooth. Taste a big spoonful; if there are any small fibers, press the mixture through a mesh strainer to remove them. Stir in the cream, almond extract, and lemon juice.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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