peach cobbler.



Within the past few years, ever since I had kids, I have an appreciation that I never had before for holidays. I am not just talking about the obvious ones such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, but even the small and subtle ones that I previously always complained about like the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. I am basically just happy with any excuse to get a few friends and/or family together and cook some good food that goes along with the day and time of year. Yesterday, being Labor Day, was a great excuse for such an occasion. My husband fired up our small grill and cooked corn, veggie burgers, and barbeque chicken (for the non-vegetarians) while I made a honey dijon potato salad, vegetarian baked beans from scratch, and one of my favorite late-summer desserts: peach cobbler.

Peach cobbler to me is perfection- warm sweet peaches in brown sugar with a thick biscuit-like crust, served with vanilla ice cream on top. I admit though, I did something I so rarely do, especially when fruit is in season: I used canned peaches. I had a big can of peaches hiding away in the back of our cupboard that has been waiting for a use, so a Labor Day dinner seemed like the best time to break it out. So, as you can guess, this recipe requires very little preparation, making it a perfect last minute end-of-summer treat.



Southern Peach Cobbler

Ingredients:

1 large can (29 ounces) sliced peaches in light syrup
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch salt
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup chilled butter or margarine
1/3 cup milk (soy or rice also work)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Drain peaches, reserving syrup. Arrange peach slices in a lightly buttered 1-quart baking dish.

Measure 1 cup of the syrup into a small saucepan; blend in the sugars, lemon juice, spices, salt, butter, and cornstarch. Place the saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil; simmer, stirring, until thickened and clear, about 4 to 5 minutes. Pour the hot mixture over the peaches. Place in the oven while preparing topping.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 2 teaspoons sugar. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk and stir until a stiff dough is formed. Drop by spoonfuls onto the hot peach filling. Return to the oven and bake until topping is browned, about 20 minutes. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Delicious Dried Plum Dessert for Autumn

Image
Two years ago in October everyone's favourite Parisian-American foodblogger, David Lebovitz , hosted a one-off Prune Blogging Thursday that resulted in a number of recipes using the humble wrinkled prune , aka dried plum. I submitted a recipe for healthy prune cake , which tasted much better than it looked. However, this time I've got a dried plum dessert recipe that both tastes good and looks good . The recipe is adapted from an Estonian cookbook " Kohupiima- ja kodujuusturaamat " (100 Rooga) and yields 6 small portions. I've garnished mine with sweet pomegranate seeds , but you can use lavender or lemon balm or simply dust the dessert with icing sugar. If you cannot find curd cheese (a popular ingredient here in Estonia), then ricotta or even cottage cheese (press through the sieve) would probably work as well. This would make a nice Christmas dessert - just in case you're already imagining the Christmas menu in your head :) Dried Plum and Curd Cheese Desse...
Read more

layered brownies.

Image
After the spice explosion of Thanksgiving (cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, oh my!), all I could think about on Monday was something rich and chocolatey. Searching through my pantry, I was dissapointed to find nothing but a tiny bit of cocoa powder and some chocolate syrup. I was quite close to giving up and baking something else when I came across a recipe in an old christmas cookie magazine for brownies using chocolate syrup instead of regular melted chocolate. Hoorah! I was saved. The original recipe for these used a combination of chocolate and peppermint flavoring, but halfway through making them, I sadly found that I had no more mint extract. Instead, I mixed in some caramel extract into the cream mixture, which seemed to turn out just fine. I am sure a lot of different extracts and flavorings would work nicely: cherry extract, Kahlua, Amaretto, coconut flavoring, etcetera. Be on the lookout though. The spices will be back shortly. It's holiday time! Layered Brownies: recipe ...
Read more

Moist, moister, moistest: rhubarb muffins

Image
Photo updated in May 2009 We are still enjoying the rhubarb bounty . Here's a recipe for really moist rhubarb muffins that I made twice last week. Firstly, they were served at a 'girly' housewarming/ birthday party last Thursday, attended by all my aunties (that's three maternal and one paternal), my parents (my dad was unable to attend the 'real' birthday party on a previous weekend), as well as some of my first cousins (not all 11 though:). Instead of birthday cake , I made lots of these rhubarb muffins that day, served as a pyramid on a cake stand. Very pretty!! But in the midst of all the buzz and excitement, we forgot to take a picture. Not that it mattered much, as it gave me a good excuse to make these very same muffins again on Sunday. These muffins, let me tell you, are the moistest muffins you'll make. They're so moist, that even if you eat them on the following day, they taste like they're freshly baked. Delicious! Rhubarb muffins ( Rab...
Read more