Savory Sundays #2: Blackberry Cobbler

I don't know what possessed me to try to start blogging in earnest two weeks before moving house, right as summer was coming upon us, but I failed miserably. I really did try hard to come back at first, scheduling a major cooking marathon for myself one week before moving and a few times even doing the cooking, taking the pictures and just never getting to the point of sitting down and writing the associated blog. Unfortunately, and I knew this, the writing should be done the same day as the cooking, otherwise important things may be forgotten in the telling.

At any rate, the end of summer is upon us and with it, of course, comes blackberry season. We now have, since our move, twenty-six acres of woodland (designated as a city park) across the street from us, complete with brambling blackberries just begging for a trip to my kitchen. We picked about ten pounds of blackberries over a couple of days between the park and another spot we found a little further around the corner. Most of that went into a pot with some honey for jam and a few made it to the freezer, but no way, no how, can ten pounds of black berries be picked without a blackberry cobbler appearing.

I was eleven years old the first time I ate a blackberry. Blackberries don’t grow in New England like they do in the Pacific Northwest; until my family moved west, I had grown up eating wild blueberries and raspberries. However, we arrived in Oregon at the end of July, right as blackberry season was really picking up some speed. It didn’t take us long to learn to look forward to the summer blackberry harvest because of all the wonderful things that could be done with them.

When I was in high school, it became my job to pick the blackberries to fulfill orders at the family farm. I would have to get up early on school-less summer days, cover up from head to foot to protect myself against the thorns, and get over to the farm to get the berries picked before the mercury got too high. No easy feat in a place that can be as hot as 90 degrees at nine in the morning. As much as I loved eating these berries as a kid, I utterly loathed picking them.

But now I’m an adult and it’s all on my terms, which makes the whole process much more appealing. Up here in Seattle, blackberry season seems to come in mid-August and, if we’re lucky and it doesn’t start raining, goes well into September. We’ve noticed the berries picking up some speed, so Jami and I went picking and managed to get about five pounds of berries in about an hour. Of course, a cobbler was necessary.

This recipe, like so many of my recipes, originates in The Joy of Cooking; it is an adaptation of their recipe for blueberry cobbler.

Blackberry Cobbler

Preheat oven to 375F.

In an ungreased 2qt casserole, about two inches deep, mix:

3 pints Blackberries

¼ C White sugar

¼ C Brown sugar

2 Tbl Cornstarch or ¼ C flour

1 Tsp Lemon juice

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

1 C All-purpose flour

1/3 C White whole wheat flour

2 Tbl Sugar

¾ Tsp Baking powder

¼ Tsp Baking soda

½ C Dried unsweetened coconut, flaked

½ C Walnuts, chopped

Add:

5 Tbl Butter, cold.

Here is my favorite trick for making pastries: If you don’t have a pastry cutter, hate the trick with two knives or have arthritic hands that won’t let you break the butter down in the flour, get out your cheese grater. Grate the butter right into the bowl of flour. Stop about half way through to mix, then grate the rest in. So much easier!

Whisk together in a small bowl, then add to the flour mixture:

½ C Sour cream

¼ C Buttermilk or heavy cream

Spread dough over blackberries by dropping small spoonfuls over the top until the berries are mostly covered.

Bake 45-50 minutes, allow to cool for fifteen minutes before serving.

Of course, this would be fantastic with a little vanilla ice cream, or even just with a drizzle of cream over the top.

It tasted wonderful; the coconut and walnuts in the batter combined brilliantly with the sweet-tart of the blackberries for a delicious and unique flavor combination. This could be done with pretty much any seasonal fruit, with any nut or seed combination.

Tune in next week for our first actual savory, Savory Sunday.

Savory Sundays #1: Strawberry-Cinnamon Coffee Cake with Orange Zest

So, taking a cue from my wonderful girlfriend who inspires me in so many ways, I have decided that it is past time to get this mostly unused blog up and running. I have a need to write (even if I do find a million excuses every day not to sit my butt down and do it), and I also have a need to cook as this is what helps me retain what little sanity remains to me. In addition, every time I've blogged about food, I've gotten requests for recipes and even pics. So, in the fashion of Jami's Wily Wednesdays in which she posts a new art project to her blog every Wednesday, and Kyle Hepworth's Something a week, I will now institute Savory Sundays. Savory Sunday blogs will feature one new recipe either attempted or created by me and written about here where you will get a recipe to try and picture to oogle. It seems to hit three birds with one stone, so let's give it a shot.

Disclaimer: The name is actually a bit of a misnomer as our first Sunday savory is actually a Sunday sweet.

Strawberries have been abundant and inexpensive lately, so I've been buying them left and right. We can only get through them so quickly though, and one of my favorite ways to use up fruit that's slightly past it's prime is to bake it into something. Therefore, this week we have Strawberry-Cinnamon Coffee Cake with Orange Zest.

I've spent all weekend trying to think of a good recipe for my kick off, but nothing was coming to me. I think it was probably my mind trying to block me again, but after a while, I was finally able to come up with a short list of ingredients I wanted to play with. I didn't get too wild here: strawberries, cinnamon, oatmeal and orange.

I googled strawberry cake and strawberry bread, but all of the recipes I found seemed like the end product would taste like it came out of a box. We all know I'm no fan of food from boxes, so I set about making some modifications to the easiest and most basic recipe. Here is what followed:

Strawberry-Cinnamon Coffee Cake with Orange Zest

In a medium sized bowl, I combined the following:

1/2 C White whole wheat flour
1/2 C All-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 C Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Cloves
1/8 tsp Ground mace
2 tsp baking powder

I use the two flours because I prefer whole wheat flour for the fact that it is less processed and more nutritious than all-purpose flours. White whole wheat is wonderful to bake with, and has a higher rise than regular whole wheat flours, but I find that the end product can still be somewhat dense. The compromise of 50/50 seems to work better (as compared to the 1:2 general rule when using traditional whole wheat flour). In places where the end result is not expected to rise (as in the topping recipe below), I generally use the white whole wheat exclusively.

In a larger bowl, I combined:

1 Egg
1/2 C Milk
2 tsp Butter, melted
The zest of half an orange

Once the egg was evenly distributed and these ingredients were well blended, I added the flour mixture and stirred until the batter was smooth.

After pouring the batter into a 9x9 pan and making sure it was evenly distributed, I topped it with about 1 1/2 cups sliced, fresh strawberries.

In the medium bowl that had held the flour mixture, I combined:

1/2 C White whole wheat flour
1/2 C Brown sugar
1/4 C Rolled oats
1/4 C Butter, softened
1/4 C Nuts, chopped

I combined these to a crumble using my hand in the bowl and evenly distributed it over the top of the strawberries, then baked it for approximately 30 minutes.

The end result:



And this is what it looked like on the plate. The combination of the crunchy, crumbly topping, the tart and sweet strawberries, and the orange zested spice cake underneath was delicious and flavorful, combining a variety of flavors and textures in each bite.



What I would do differently next time:

Thanks to my electric oven, some of the peaks of the topping blackened. Next time, I will probably cover the pan with aluminum foil for the first half of baking to prevent this.

Also, I would probably cut as much as half of the sugar next time. This cake is delicious as is, but the worst thing in it is the full cup of sugar (between the cake and the topping) in addition to the natural sugars in the strawberries. I think next time I'll use 1/4 cup each in the cake and topping.

The vote:

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

I will definitely be making this again. One of my guinea pigs went back for more.... twice. It's a spicy, fruity, moist and soft cake with a wonderfully nutty and sweet crunchy topping that's basically impossible to refuse.