Wowie. It has been a Big Day here at The Beautiful House. First, some tree guys showed up, and we thought they were our tree guys. This is their stuff:
Impressive enough, I suppose.
So then, they start hooking lines up to a tree next door. Oh, yay–we’re going to have Dueling Tree Dudes! I made popcorn and prepared to be Riveted.
And then, about half an hour later, our tree guys showed up. And this is what they brought:
What?! This is the Awesomest Thing Ever
Game over, baby. This was like an NFL team playing against the Pee Wees. I put the popcorn away and just settled in to enjoy the ride. If you’d like to enjoy the ride with me, here’s a link. Even the other tree dude came over and watched. He did an amazing job over there, don’t get me wrong. But how do you compete against the Big Red One?! I mean, seriously–that is one big old package of Hydrolic Awesome right there.
Anyway, I told you I would write about pastry type things today, so here I go–I just couldn’t let the Awesomeness go undocumented.
So, The Beloved and Henry and I went to the Farmer’s Market on Sunday. We purchased beautiful North Carolina peaches. I tasted before I bought, and they were juicy and peachy but not too sweet. Perfectly wonderful and kind of meaty, if you know what I mean. I felt like I must do Something Special with them. I was going to use blueberries and blackberries from the yard, but Henry cannot eat seeds (!) so I just used straight up peaches. I almost didn’t remember–I had the blueberries all ready to go when I realized that what I was about to do would hurt his stomach a Very Lot. I also wanted to use some of my lovely corn meal from Atkinson’s Mill, so here’s how it went. Oh, I did this by volume, just because cobbler is not an Exact Science, and I had a cup measure handy. All measurements are approximate–seriously. Do not stress over this one At All.
Peach and Berry Cobbler, Hold the Berries Because of Henry
- 1/2 stick butter
- about 2 1/2 cups of cut up peaches (or a mixture of peaches and berries, if you’re not making this for Henry)
- pinch o’ salt
- about 3/4 cup AP flour
- about 1/4 cup corn meal
- about 1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup white and 1/4 cup brown)
- big pinch o’ salt
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- sprinkle or two of ground ginger
- 1 cup milk
- 1 wee splash vanilla
Put the half stick of butter in a baking dish and put the dish in the oven at 350F.
While the butter is melting (mine, of course, was frozen), cut up your fruit and toss with a pinch of salt.
Measure out the dry ingredients–flours, sugars, salt and baking powder–into a bowl. I threw both flours in the measuring cup together. Ditto sugars). You might have to smash up chunks of brown sugar.
Pour in the milk and vanilla and whisk until you have a pretty smooth batter.
Take the baking dish out of the oven, and pour in the batter.
Dump the fruit in an even-ish manner on top of the batter–it will sink in.
Bake until well risen and golden brown and delicious. This took about 40 minutes for me.
Let cool to warm and Eat.
I had asked The Beloved to bring home some vanilla ice cream, and when it was time toserve, I asked him Where It Was. He made the Homer Simpson “Doh!” face. I remained silent for a moment, and then switched to Plan B: sour cream, a bit of ginger, a pinch of salt and brown sugar stirred together. I am enjoying this topping more and more. If you haven’t tried it yet, you really should.
Oh, here’s what the whole cobbler thing looked like before I shoved it into my face.
Creamy, peachy goodness.
The little bit of corn meal gave it an almost sweet-grits-soufflé type flavor that went Very Well with the peaches. I made it for last night’s dinner, but I had some for brunch as I watched the Tree Dudes do their thing. A Very Satisfying morning.
Stumble It!
This feeds how many, excluding Henry?
Because I love you, Jim, I am going to give you my standard answer: it depends on how hungry people are.
6-8 large to large-ish servings, prolly. I’d guess you could serve 10-12 wee-er portions. It should scale up w/no problem (just watch your baking powder), so you could feed a crowd if you made a ton in a hotel pan or something.
How timely of you! I am planning peach cobblers for tomorrow night’s grille dessert. I used to do a cherry cobbler similar to what you describe – only no cornmeal. I love the way the batter puffs up around the fruit. If you really want a taste treat, add a little bit of almond extract. I too love cinnamon and peaches. I made some peach muffins this morning and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top before baking. Yum! I love when those first bushels of fresh peaches show up in the walk-in!
not to split hairs, but isn’t this more of a buckle? Or a grunt, or one of those other cake-and-fruit combinations with funny names? At any rate, it sounds delectable. Nick and I are very excited about all the sweet, juicy, delicious fruit available in the market now. So what does the CSA send us? Cassis (blackcurrants). Any suggestions? They are quite Seedy and tart.
(I’ve started with the only recipe I could find: a cassis ganache from Pierre Hermé, but I still have almost a whole basket of them left.)
I’m going with cobbler, since the fruit peeks out of the batter and looks like cobblestones. In my experience, grunts are steamed. If I’d added a streusel topping, it would have been a buckle. The topping w/out the batter would’ve been a crisp. Alas, all the names out there for Warm, Cakey Goodness. It sometimes hurts my head!
As far as the cassis goes, Camille, I think I’d just make a sauce/syrup with them. Pinch of salt, simple syrup, cook down and strain. Just a thought. The ganache sounds intriguing; how was it?
So far, what didn’t go inito the tart shell was great for dipping strawberries and apricots into (pardon the dangling preposition). The tart is on the menu for tonight… I’m thinking it will be decadent.
Incidentally, what you described is essentially the first step in making the ganache. I pureed the cassis and pushed them through a strainer, then heated the purée with sugar, water, and crème de cassis before pouring it over 70% chocolate from Madagascar (chosen for its fruity qualities).
We had peach cobbler for the 4th of July. It involved canned peaches, a box cake mix and a slow cooker. I think I’d like to try your version.
We had tree dudes last year to take down our maple tree which was the supermodel of the backyard – stunning on the outside, completely hollow on the inside (awwww, that’s so mean, TN!) But we didn’t get Hydraulic Awesomeness – instead, it was old-school lumberjack techniques: young men climbing up trees with chainsaws.
Nice! And sometimes, you just have to let those prepositions dangle, lest we sound too Uptight and Stuffy!