{Baking} CORNMEAL DROP BISCUIT PEACH COBBLER … for times when the mason doesn’t show up!

Deeba @ PAB

14 years ago

“There’s your karma ripe as peaches.”

Jack Kerouac

Even while the hammers rain blows down, and the kitchen is in shambles, I have a list of things to do. A cobbler was on my must bake list before the stone fruit season bid us adieu. It’s been bookmarked ever since I saw it on Leites Culinaria when I stopped by attempting to try and bake a recipe off the site for a photography competition. This cobbler was high on my list, until Monsieur Lebovitz’s Absolute Best Brownies knocked me off my perch!

Not one to stay knocked off for so long, I was soon winging my way back to my must bake list. We’ve had some minor issues while the kitchen renovation goes on … stuff like minor flooding {never touch the plumbing if it works fine!!}, and then a day with minimal work done when the mason took a rainy day off! For me, minimal work being done was a golden opportunity to get down to baking. If the mason doesn’t show up, it’s cobbler time!

Cobbler is a traditional dish in both the United States and the United Kingdom, although the meaning of the term is quite different in each country. In the United States, it is usually a dessert consisting of a fruit filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a rolled pastry dough, then baked in an oven. In the United Kingdom it is usually a savoury meat dish, typically a lamb casserole, which is covered with a savoury scone-like topping, each scone (or biscuit) forming a separable cobbler. Fruit-based versions are also increasingly popular in the United Kingdom, although they still retain the separate cobbler (or biscuit) topping of the meat version, and savoury or meat versions are not unknown in the United States. The Crisp or Crumble differ from the cobbler in that the cobbler’s top layer is more biscuit-like. Grunts, Pandowdy, and Slumps are a New England variety of cobbler, typically cooked on the stove-top or cooker in an iron skillet or pan with the dough on top in the shape of dumplings; they reportedly take their name from the grunting sound they make while cooking.

Jeanne @ Cooksister had an Apple Pecan Cobbler posted just recently, and I knew the time had come. for me to try the peach cobbler. This was one fruit dessert I hadn’t tried so far. A fridge full of peaches, a few plums too, soon I had a pie dish full of fruit. I chopped the peaches instead of slicing them, all done in haste, but cobbler I made! It’s not a beautiful thing to photograph, but I took a shot. I love the rustic fruity look the cobbled top offered, somewhat like a mosaic, with colourful fruit and juices peeping through. I threw in some pistachio nuts in the biscuit topping, just to add to the taste and, maybe colour!

This particular recipe is from the cookbook The Lee Brothers Simple Fresh Southern by Mat & Ted Lee. Very ‘Simple, Fresh and Southern’ as the book title goes, it is a versatile one too. I added a few plums for colour with the peaches. I think like in most cobblers, apples, blackberries, blueberries etc all work wonderfully under the drop biscuit crust. The fruit juices get cooked and combine with the sugar to form a thick syrup which rises above the biscuit edges to give a cobbled stone like appearance. The cobbler was rustic beautiful and moorish, and full of bursting good flavours.

I’m glad I made the cobbler. It was delicious and ever so fruity. Mr PAB said, ‘What is this ‘thing’ Deeba? It’s delicious!‘ The daughter said, “I love this mushy, ugly thing. Can I have some more?”, and the son loved it too, especially the biscuit crust {anything with butter is!}. I served it chilled because it’s still summer here and we’d rather have cold dessert than warm. Also, chilling it meant that all the fruit juices thickened up nicely and the flavours matured. Of course, it wasn’t very picture-worthy, but heck… My first cobbler was downright delicious, and is off to the Food Photo Competition @ Leite’s Culinaria!

Cornmeal Drop-Biscuit Peach Cobbler
Recipe from Matt and Ted Lees book, The Lee Brothers Simple Fresh Southern

Adapted minimally from recipe @ Leites Culinaria

For the peach filling

1 kg ripe peaches, stoned , chopped {or sliced}

3-4 plums, stoned, chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar {or more, depending on your peaches and your sweet tooth}

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

For the biscuit dough

3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1/4 cup fine cornmeal

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup pistachio nuts, shelled

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon iodized salt or fine sea salt

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for the baking dish

1/2 cup cold buttermilk {I used low fat}

Method:

Preheat oven to 220C. Butter a 9″ pie dish

Place all filling ingredients in a large bowl, and toss to mix well. Allow to stand for ten minutes while you make the drop-biscuit dough

Drop-biscuit dough

Place the flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder, pistachio nuts and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse for a few seconds till the nuts are chopped fine, and the mixture blended. Add the butter and give 2-3 short pulses till the butter cuts through, and the mixture becomes like coarse meal with pea size bits of butter. Add the buttermilk and stir with a rubber spatula just until a tacky, wet dough comes together, which should take no more than a few seconds.

Gently plop spoonfuls of the biscuit dough on top of the peach filling or, if the dough is too sticky to plop, simply spread it unevenly. The dough should be patchy and should not cover the entire surface of the filling.

Bake until the cobbler’s syrup is bubbly and the biscuit top is alluringly browned, 20 to 25 minutes.

Scoop the warm cobbler into small dessert bowls, ramekins, even cocktail glasses. Serve warm.

♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

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