Saying Goodbye to Summer . . . with Fresh Fruit Cobbler . . .

I bought a pint of fresh blueberries yesterday and the vendor who handed it to me, at the farmer's market, remarked matter of factly, "Last week for blueberries!" Guess there's no denying it now--summer is closing up shop. But that's okay with me since each season brings its own gifts, and its own fruits.

Cobbler's nice at this transitional point in the summer because it's so forgiving. You can use just about any variety of stone fruit and berries that you want, and none of them have to look perfect or be completely unblemished. I tucked peaches, raspberries, and blueberries in these, using some cute ramekins to make individual servings. I like this recipe for a few reasons, but mostly because the topping isn't just plopped on the fruit by the spoonful. It's firm enough to make a soft but solid dough that can be pressed with your hands or rolled out, and then cut with a cookie cutter. I used a basic flower shape, and made sure the cutter I chose was slightly smaller in circumference than the circumference of the ramekin, since the dough puffs up and out a bit in the oven.



Summer's End Fruit Cobbler

(For a printable version of this recipe click here!)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and butter five one-cup ramekins (could instead use a single casserole dish that holds at least 1 and 1/2 quarts, or probably any 9" by 9" pan).

For the filling:

3/4 cup blueberries
2 cups raspberries
1 and 1/2 cups peach chunks (about 3 peaches, peeled and cut into 1/2" pieces)
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

For the topping:

1 and 1/3 cups All Purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup sour cream
2 - 4 Tbsp. heavy cream (or just use milk or half & half)
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar

To make the filling:

Mix all the fruit in a large bowl with the lemon juice.

In a separate small bowl, mix the sugar and cornstarch together using a fork.


Sprinkle the sugar mixture evenly over the fruit and stir to coat all the pieces and berries well.


Portion the coated fruit evenly into your buttered ramekins or baking dish. Drizzle with 2 Tbsp. of melted butter.

To make the dough for the topping:

Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate small bowl, mix together the sour cream and 2 Tbsp. of melted butter.


Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the sour cream mixture. Mix well to form the dough.

If the dough seems too sticky and wet, add a little more flour, about a tablespoon or two; if too dry, add in the heavy cream or milk (reserving a tablespoon or so of cream/milk as you'll need it later), bit by bit, until the dough holds together well.

Dump the dough out onto a floured surface. Flour your hands and gather the dough into a ball. Press the dough into a flat disk about half an inch thick. (Or, if you prefer, use a floured rolling pin.)


If you like, use a shaped cutter to make the tops for your ramekins, or just use a round biscuit cutter or a glass turned upside down.

If the dough is very soft, use a spatula to transfer the pieces to the top of the fruit.

Brush the cream onto the top of the dough pieces, and sprinkle granulated sugar on top of that.

Put the ramekins on a cookie sheet that's been covered with parchment or foil ( do the same if you're just using a single baking dish) to catch spills. Check on the cobblers about 20 minutes into baking. Cover lightly with foil if they're browning too fast.

Remove from the oven when the tops are golden brown and the filling is quite bubbly, perhaps 25 minutes to 30 minutes. Cool briefly on the cookie sheet.

Great served warm, or cold, with a little sweetened or unsweetened whipped cream, or with vanilla ice cream. And not too shabby served plain either!


Recipe full disclosure! This recipe is based on one that comes originally from Family Circle magazine, though in what issue it may have appeared I do not know. I found it via this link at Recipe.com. I altered some of the ingredient proportions, rewrote the instructions, added blueberries to mine, and made them in individual servings versus in one big dish.

(If you'd like to comment on this post or read any existing comments just click on the purple COMMENTS below!)

Retro Desserts, Part II: Dark-Chocolate Bread Pudding . . . with Whipped Cream

Chocolate bread pudding wasn't really on my agenda this week, one might say it just happened. And what a happening it was.

Of course, for typical American-style bread pudding you need typical American bread, and, typically, that means white. In my household we're not regular consumers of prefab, sliced, white bread at all--I can't even remember the last time I bought it. But, in my efforts to gain some skill in baking yeast bread, I figured I'd better learn to walk with the easy, fluffy, white stuff before I try to run with the chewy, nutty, brown breads. So a few days ago, using a new recipe, I made a batch of of white sandwich-bread dough, and the loaves it yielded were . . . well . . . they were lovely.

And speaking of "retro" . . .

As I pulled the pans one by one from the oven, I gazed at the loaves and thought to myself, ". . . my gosh, they're too perfect . . . they look like they're right out of one of those old 'Dick and Jane' books." (Yeah, right, the one titled "Dick and Jane Convince Their Mother, Who is Always Neatly Coiffed and Clothed in a Freshly Ironed Dress and Moderately High Heels, to Bake Her Own Bread" -- haa! I don't think that one's been written yet.) Needless to say, I was pleased with them. Coupled with the French baguettes I managed not to destroy last weekend, I've chalked up two yeasty successes in one week--previously unheard of for me. I'm on a roll.

Anyway, I made three sandwich loaves, all in pans of differing sizes. They were warm, golden, and charmingly rounded on top. Just like the three bears--big, medium, and small--they were darn cute. And let's face it, I'm so grateful when yeast cooperates with me that I could just about weep whenever things actually turn out the way they're supposed to. It's kind of pathetic, I know.

But enough about the bread, get to the pudding already!

My kids aren't big on white bread and that, of course, is a very good thing nutritionally, but they loved this stuff, especially slathered with peanut butter and jam. Thus the two smaller loaves went quickly, and just slightly less than half of the large loaf was still available yesterday when I happened to be sitting at the kitchen table sorting through some old handwritten recipe cards. As I pondered the dog-eared card for chocolate bread pudding, I realized I had just enough homemade bread left to give it a whirl, and I had all the other ingredients on hand as well. Nothing to stop me.

It seems to me (and perhaps you've noticed too?) that bread pudding recipes often indicate you should remove the crust from the bread before you cut it into cubes. I've always figured, though, if the bread itself is of really nice quality, and the crust isn't too chewy, stale, or tough, why not leave the crust on? I mean, let's be reasonable. So, in my instructions below I don't recommend removing the crust unless you feel compelled to do so, perhaps by forces beyond your control.

Now, bread pudding, as you know, isn't the type of dessert that will ever win a beauty contest. It's majesty lies not in its looks and form, but in its texture and taste. A dollop of softly whipped cream atop a little bowl of chocolate bread pudding enhances its visual appeal considerably, of course, but also adds immeasurably to its ambrosial yum factor. So be sure to have some cream for whipping on hand when you make your pudding . . . you won't regret it.

(And as for this recipe's attribution, well, all I know is that my late mom said she got it "from a newspaper" a few dozen years ago. That's not much to go on, but in this case it'll have to do. That's retro enough for me!)

This fantastic stuff can be eaten warm, room temp, even cold--you name it--it's that good.


Dark-Chocolate Bread Pudding

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 2-quart shallow baking/casserole dish.

4 cups whole milk (I didn't have any whole on hand so I used 2 cups of 2-percent and 2 cups heavy cream instead)
1/4 c. unsalted butter (I think it'd be fine with less butter, especially if you're using any cream)
4 oz. dark, bittersweet chocolate
4 oz. semisweet chocolate
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups soft fresh white bread cubes, about 1" square (with or without crust as you prefer)

In a medium saucepan, combine the milk/cream, the butter, and all of the chocolate. Heat the mixture over medium heat, just until it comes to a boil, stirring frequently.


In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla extract.


Add the bread cubes to the egg mixture and stir to completely coat all the bread cubes well.


Pour the hot milk and chocolate mixture over the bread cubes in the large bowl. Gently stir to mix, without breaking up the bread cubes.

Pour it all carefully into your buttered dish.

Bake until pudding is just "set" and still wobbly in the center but not wet looking, usually 45 minutes at least. Try not to overbake. (I baked mine on top of a cookie sheet to catch any spills.)

Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or cold, plain or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes at least six servings.

(If you'd like to comment on this post or read any existing comments, just click on the purple COMMENTS below!)

Hello there, September . . . Would You Like a Piece of Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake?

It's been unseasonably cool here lately, and people keep saying things like, "Well, I guess summer's over." Personally, I think the days of chillier than average temperatures are simply a late summer fluke, but I must admit I'm enjoying them. It's so much nicer to bake when you don't have to hermetically seal yourself into an air conditioned house, just so your oven won't seem like a blast furnace.

So, taking advantage of the good weather, I was in my kitchen yesterday morning contentedly measuring and mixing and slicing. My intention was to make a plum-ginger upside-down cake. I made it alright, but it was an unmitigated disaster. A real mess. It was with resigned disgust that I threw it in the trash shortly after taking it out of the oven. It looked so awful I couldn't seriously have contemplated keeping it, let alone serving it to another living mammal. Here's a picture of the whole revolting mess, just as I'm tossing it out . . . pretty gross, isn't it?

I can't really fault the recipe, though. I screwed it up to start with by accidentally leaving out an important ingredient (milk), the absence of which I didn't discover--of course--until after the cake was in the oven. It had occurred to me, as I was spreading the batter over the plums, that the batter seemed unusually thick. I was pondering this when I glanced over at the window above the sink, and there on the sill I noticed my glass measuring cup containing the designated milk. Ahh, that explains why the batter's the texture of spackling paste, I thought to myself. I heaved a heavy sigh. But, since the plum cake was just something I was making for fun, I didn't sink into complete despair and I figured, perhaps, it could be salvaged. Then, to add insult to injury, I foolishly took the cake out of the oven way too early. The visible part of it looked completely baked to me, but I had nagging doubts. Now, I've been around the block enough times to know that until a cake like this is flipped over and the pan is lifted off, one never really knows exactly what an upside-downer is going to look like. I knew the danger, and yet I ignored my instincts. The unveiling isn't supposed to be a shocking event, in any case. It's not supposed to be like unmasking the phantom of the opera. And yet that's exactly what it was like. (Ooooo . . . I shudder at the memory of its abject hideousness.)

Good riddance to bad plum cake. Moving on . . .

To exorcise the specter of the nasty plum-ginger upside-down cake, I then decided to make an uncomplicated coffee cake and vowed to follow the instructions with military precision. This I did, and as a result we have today's recipe. It's a Martha Stewart recipe, from her Baking Handbook. I squelched my perennial desire to tweak it. Well . . . okay. . . almost squelched it . . . I admit I tweaked the streusel, and maybe I tweaked the amount of sour cream in the cake's batter, but all to good effect I swear! And, of course, I rewrote the directions (naturally).

Anyway, it's a fine coffee cake. I'd recommend it. Nice texture, not heavy. Nice flavor, not too sweet. You can eat it with a fork or hold it in your hand. The streusel topping has a lovely buttery flavor, and it's a pretty cake too. Neither hideous nor revolting. It doesn't even remind one of unsightly phantoms.


Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9" tube pan, or a springform pan with the tube insert (butter it well).

For the streusel:

1 cup and 2 Tbsp. All Purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients with a fork. Add in the butter, and blend it in with a pastry blender. The streusel should have some little chunks here and there; no need to blend it too much. Put the bowl aside, in the fridge, until you're ready to use it.

For the cake:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups All Purpose flour (I used bleached)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup and 2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 cup frozen sour cherries that have been thawed and well drained (important that they're well drained and not too wet)

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy--about three minutes. Add in the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the sour cream in two parts; begin and end with the flour mixture. Beat until just combined, and stop to scrape the bowl and the paddle as needed.

Spread about half the batter in the buttered pan. Place the cherries evenly on top of the batter, being careful not to let any of them get close to the sides or center of the pan. (They all need to be completely covered by batter.)

Carefully spread the remaining batter over that and smooth the top. Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over that.

Bake for approximately 35 to 40 minutes. When the top is golden, and it springs back slightly when gently pressed, the cake is done. (I also did the toothpick test. I was gun shy after that plum cake incident!) Let the cake cool on a rack for about 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a dish or flat baking sheet, then immediately reinvert it back onto a rack to finish cooling. Glaze the cake when it's fully cooled, if you prefer. Or leave it plain. Delicious either way!

For glaze:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp. milk or half & half

After the cake is completely cooled, mix sugar and milk together until completely smooth. Drizzle on the cake. (If you prefer, you can flavor the glaze with just a couple drops of vanilla or almond extract. Remember, though, brown vanilla will make the glaze look beige instead of bright white.)



(If you'd like to leave a comment about this post, or to read any existing comments, just click on the purple COMMENTS below!)

Did I Really Make That Baguette? . . . Yes Jane, You Really Did!

You may recall, as I've mentioned it once or twice in the past, that I'm not much of a yeast baker at all. My confidence level with any sort of baked goods requiring yeast has always been slightly below sea level. This is a little odd, seeing that my mother baked yeast breads with spectacular success for decades and I, of course, watched her many, many times. But let's face it . . . sometimes the apple does fall a bit far from the tree. Lately, though, I find myself with the desire to just plunge in and face my fear, and today's delicious baguette helped to boost my sagging confidence significantly.

Because this recipe is becoming extremely well known among home bakers, and because there are many details and bakers' reviews you might like to read should you decide to try it, I am just going to link to it rather than rewrite it in this post. It's the King Arthur Flour website's version of the "Almost No Knead Baguette" recipe that hails from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I don't yet own this book, nor have I ever even looked for it at the library, but after today's success with the aforementioned baguette, I might just have to shell out real cash-money to procure my own copy.

This is the easiest recipe, and the results were really good, especially for a first timer. It's the type of bread dough that you can leave in your fridge literally for days, and take portions of it out to let rise and bake as you need it. Supposedly, the bread's flavor and texture improves the longer it hangs around in the fridge. (That's some kinda miracle, I'm tellin' ya.) I made the dough on Thursday and used about one third of it to make a test baguette this afternoon. Dear readers: It smelled like real French bread! Its taste and texture were just right, and my family confirmed this by helping to eat it up. No, I wasn't hallucinating. It wasn't a dream. I felt like squealing, "Victory is mine!" from the front porch. But I controlled myself, and just smiled a lot instead.

Tomorrow is Sunday and my husband and I plan to try making Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon recipe (yeah, yeah, I know, just like the thousands of other folks out there who've recently seen the film "Julie & Julia"--but hey, you guys know I never claimed to be original!). A recipe like that is really more in his ballpark than mine, so I kind of hope he takes the reins as I tend to destroy meat unintentionally. While he's herding the boeuf, I will make another baguette tomorrow, to accompany that legendary dish. We'll see how it all turns out. I hope it's divine.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my pictures of the bread with you, and to urge you to think about trying the recipe, if you're at all like me . . . that is, if you've been a complete yeast-wimp for years and you're finally trying to get up the nerve to bust out. Was the bread perfect? No, of course not perfect, but that's okay. Afterall, perfection can be so boring. And this lovely little baguette was anything but boring.

Warmly,
Jane

P.S. The blog writer of Passionate About Baking recently made this bread too, and her glowing report, which I read earlier this week, helped give me the final incentive to give it a whirl. Many thanks to you, Deeba!

Cream Cheese Blondies . . . with Milk and Dark Chocolate Chips and Honey Roasted Almonds

It's a quiet, rainy Wednesday morning here in Berkley, Michigan. My 13 year old son's skateboarding camp has been cancelled for the day, so I let him sleep in. He just rolled out of bed, at his leisure. (I guess skateboarders don't ever like to skate in the rain--something about ruining the "grip tape," according to my little resident expert.) My older son, the 16 year old, is still snoozing. He's a lifeguard at an outdoor pool and I have a feeling, what with the soggy weather, that the pool will be closed. Only a couple more weeks until school starts again for the boys, and for me.

I'm looking forward to it because, though I enjoy and appreciate the lack of structure that summer brings, I also think that I function better overall when I'm adhering to a more predictable schedule. I just start to feel more productive and on top of things once autumn rolls around again. Something about fall, here in Michigan, is particularly appealing. Aside from the cooler temperature, the air is just different somehow and so is the daylight. Is it like that everywhere? I don't know . . .

It seems to be ingrained for a lot of adults that autumn still signals the beginning of a new year, don't you think? We were so well indoctrinated to think that way as kids. Makes a person want to go out and buy a whole box of those wonderful, orangy-yellow, Ticonderoga pencils, doesn't it? I love those--they just smell like childhood. And a couple of big spiral-bound notebooks. Maybe a new Pink Pearl eraser too. There's something alluring about the idea of a bright blank page in front of you, with lots of freshly sharpened pencils close at hand, and that cute, rubbery, pink eraser standing by.
One thing I don't like about school starting? Packing lunches. Which somehow or other brings me to the blondies . . .

There are loads of recipes out there for blondies with just about every variation you can think of. And yet, when I was attempting to choose one such recipe yesterday, I couldn't locate what I felt was the perfect specimen. Aside from all the potential "add-ins" (nuts, chips, dried fruit, coconut, various flavorings, even enhancements like rum, etc.) I was more concerned with the dough itself. Some doughs require chemical leavening and some don't, while some contain eggs and others don't. Some require melted butter and some solid butter or shortening. And so on and so forth. Sitting amidst a small field of open cookbooks, I finally decided I'd better just devise my own recipe, so that's what I did.

And, lo and behold, it was good.

Cream Cheese Blondies with Milk and Dark Chocolate Chips, and Honey Roasted Almonds

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

10 Tbsp. of unsalted butter, softened (one stick, plus 2 Tbsp.)
3 oz. of cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar, firmly packed
3 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups All Purpose flour (I used unbleached)
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips (bittersweet)
3/4 cup honey-roasted almonds, coarsely chopped

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 8" x 8" pans with parchment so it overhangs two opposite sides (you'll lift out the cooled blondies by those "handles") . Spray the parchment and the two bare sides of the pans with baking spray, or grease the parchment and the two bare sides of the
pans.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, using the paddle attachment, on medium-low speed, cream the butter, cream cheese, and brown sugar until very well blended and smooth; about two minutes or so. Scrape the bowl and paddle.


Add in the eggs and vanilla extract, beating on medium until well combined and smooth.


Add in the flour mixture gradually on lowest speed, beating just until blended.


Add in the chocolate chips and nuts on lowest speed just until mixed in.


Divide the dough evenly between the two pans and smooth it out with a spatula.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Check the blondies early to make sure they're not overbrowning; cover lightly with foil if they are. Remove them from oven when they're golden all over the top and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool the blondies in their pans on a rack for about 20 minutes. Lift them out of the pans using the parchment handles, and cool them further, still on the paper, on the rack.

When they're completely cool, cut them with a really sharp knife.

Okay, now taste one of the blondies, and be happy.


(If you'd like to comment on this post or to read any existing comments, click on the purple COMMENTS below!)