Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

This is the best thing ever. Seriously.
The fruit in most cobblers turns out mushy and shapeless, here the fruit sits halfway into the batter, resulting in sweet, juicy fruit bites bursting with rich flavor. The spongy cake puffs up around the fruit and forms a butter-induced crispy layer on top. Incredibly good.
Recipe courtesy of my favorite college housemate, Reid. (adapted to be gluten-free, in a smaller pan)



Makes a 9 x 9" pan worth of cobbler
- 2 medium sized bowls
- 9 x 9" Al pan or glass pan lined with Al foil
Preheat to 365 F
Easy

INGREDIENTS
Fruit:
2 large peaches, sliced into 8ths
~3/4ths of a pint of fresh blueberries
1/2 to 3/4 c. sugar
Butter:
1/4 c. butter
Batter:
1.5 c. sugar
pinch of salt
3/4 c. brown rice flour
1/4 c. + 2 Tbsp. Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Baking Flour
1 heaping tsp. xanthan gum
1.5 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c. milk or non-dairy milk substitute

DIRECTIONS
0. Preheat oven to 365 F. Line a glass baking pan with aluminum foil.
Fruit:
1. Wash the peaches and cut into 8 wedges. Half each of the wedges if you want smaller peach pieces. Wash the blueberries. Place fruit into the medium bowl and toss with 1/2 cup of white sugar. Taste berries; add in another 1/4th cup of sugar if you desire sweeter fruit.
Butter:
2. Before you mix up the batter, place the butter into the lined 9 x 9 pan. Pop pan into the preheating oven to melt the butter. Remove once butter had completely melted; swish around to get a uniform layer.
Batter:
3. Mix dry ingredients together (1.5 c. sugar, rice and BRM flour, xanthan gum and baking powder) in another medium-sized bowl. Stirring, pour in the milk. You actually want a viscous, almost paste-like dough (too crumbly, add in another tsp. of milk until smooth). If the batter easily pours, it is way too liquid-y and will turn out soggy.
Assemble:
4. Before the butter solidifies again, spoon the batter over the liquid butter (still resting in the lined pan). DO NOT mix the butter/batter. You want the layers separate-- the oil might move aside as you drop batter spoonfuls in, that's okay. Try to get a semi-uniform layer of batter, though.
5. Press the sugar-coated fruit pieces gently down into the top of the batter layer; evenly space out the berries. Make sure you don't transfer too much sugar water along with the fruit.
6. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes in the oven. The cobbler is done when the fruit is tender and roasted and the cake part is nice and browned. The inside of the cobbler will be moist. This is best served fresh right out of the oven (it gets dense after refrigeration, but the taste is still fantastic!).

Blueberry-Strawberry Cobbler

Has a nice mixed-berry taste. Was shooting for red and blue-- came out more like purple-pink, but that's okay. The topping here is fluffy and spongy, reminiscent of muffin; definitely not a crisp.

I did just blueberry last week while on vacation using Bobs Red Mill pancake mix as pre-leavened, pre-xanthaned 'flour'. Fairly easy dessert to make while visiting a friend with a kitchen. All I needed, in addition to the pancake mix, was some extra white sugar, cream (use slightly less cream and less sugar in the batter), a lemon, an egg and a few berries. Didn't even require an electric mixer. Just as good!
Adapted from this recipe.



Make one 9" pie
65 minutes (15 min for fruit + 10 min for topping + 40 minutes baking)
- medium bowl
- 9" pie pan with deep sides; Al pan works fine
Easy

INGREDIENTS
Fruit Filling:
18 oz. of blueberries (-or- ~10 oz. blueberries + ~8 oz. strawberries)
1/4 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. GF flour (don't add xanthan gum!)
1 tsp. almond extract (use 1 tsp. lemon juice if you don't have almond extract)
Bread Topping:
1 large egg
3/4 c. heavy cream (try coconut cream if you can't do dairy)
1 c. GF flour ---> [I used Bobs Red Mill all-purpose flour + 1 level tsp. xanthan gum]
1/2 c. white sugar
1 tsp. baking powder

DIRECTIONS
0. Preheat oven to 375 F
Fruit:
1. Wash blueberries. If you're adding strawberries, remove the green end bit and cut the large ones into quarters (leave the strawberries as fairly big chunks).
2. Place berries into a medium-sized bowl and add the 1/4 c. sugar, 2 Tbsp. flour and almond extract [fresh lemon juice is good, too]. Stir gently with your hands to mix. Scoop berries into the waiting 9" pie pan and spread evenly along the bottom.
Topping:
3. Crack the large egg into the rinsed bowl and mix with the heavy cream. [If using a pancake or cake mix, use less cream and sugar]. Whisk with a fork to break up the egg yolk. Pour in the flour, add xanthan gum, white sugar and baking powder. Stir the flour mixture to incorporate with the wet-- the dough should be thick, stretchy and soft.
4. With your hands, scoop the dough over the sweetened berries. You might need to stretch or squish the dough into thinner sections to evenly coat the top. Once the topping is uniform and covering, place into the oven for 30 to 40 minutes. [I believe the pancake batter was slightly thinner and needed to be cooked for almost 45 minutes to brown.] The cobbler is done once the top is golden-brown and berries are bubbling. Serve warm with ice cream.

Cherry Crisp

Fresh cherries = good. Pitts = bad. It took me a good 40 minutes to de-pit these cherries by hand, but it was worth it. Really no-hassle once the pits are removed. Old fashioned crisp.. this 'oatmeal' topping is crumbly and crunchy, not cobbler. Add in more white sugar if you wish, I liked this dessert slightly on the tart side.

Serves 4

40 + 15 + 55 minutes (total 1 hr 50 minutes)

preheat 375 F

- 9 x 9 inch pan

-medium bowl

Easy

INGREDIENTS

Fruit:

2 c. cherries, pitted-- could use thawed and drained frozen cherries and cut 40 minutes off of the preparation time
½ c. white sugar
1 ½ tbsp. cornstarch

Crisp topping:

¾ c. brown rice flour
½ tsp. xanthan gum
¼ c. brown sugar
½ c. crushed Enjoy Life Very Berry granola cereal
Pinch of salt

1/3 c. butter, cut into batter

DIRECTIONS

Fruit:

1. Find yourself some pitted cherries. That means defrosting a bag of frozen, pitted cherries -OR- using fresh cherries and taking the pits out by hand. I used a paring knife and cut into each cherry, removing the pit.

2. Place the DRAINED, pitted cherries into the 9 x 9 inch pan, spreading evenly. Sprinkle fruit with 1/2 c. white sugar. Also sprinkle with cornstarch. Toss/stir to evenly coat the cherries. Make sure the fruit is evenly distributed in the pan; fruit layer should be at least 1 inch thick.

Crisp:

-Preheat oven to 375 F-

3. Pour brown rice flour into a medium bowl. Add in the xanthan gum and stir well. Add in the brown sugar. Mix again.

4. Place Very Berry granola cereal into a heavy duty sandwich baggie and smash with something hard (I use a nice hammer) until the granola resembles small oatmeal chunks. Add smashed granola bits into the medium bowl with the rice flour mixture.

5. Cut butter into flour/cereal mixture (make sure it's room temperature); cut small bits of butter at a time. The topping should look like coarse, crumbly, cornmeal when completed. Mix well.

6. Spoon crumbly butter topping over the fruit in the 9 x 9 inch pan. Distribute evenly. Place pan into the oven and bake for 55 minutes at 375 F. Crisp is done when fruit juices are dark red and bubbling and topping is crispy and browned. Enjoy hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

St. Luke's Apple Pie; Revised

The original recipe produced a pie.. this is more of an apple crisp, but still turned out delicious. (Plus, who really needs the bottom pie crust, anyway?) Don't let the 'overnight prep' or detailed instructions fool you, this is actually an easy GF dessert to make.



Serves 4
1 hour + 1 hour
450 F
Overnight prep
-8 x 8 " pan
-peeler
Easy

INGREDIENTS
Fruit filling
5-6 medium ripe granny smith apples
1/2 c. white sugar
plenty of cinnamon (around 2 tsp.)*
dash of nutmeg*
GF Crumble crust
3/4 c. white rice flour (sorghum would probably work, too)
1/2. tsp xanthan gum
1/2 c. white sugar
1/3 c. butter, frozen*
*McCormick spices are GF; I used Earth Balance buttery sticks to make this DF

DIRECTIONS
Prep:
1. Place butter in the freezer if not frozen already.
Fruit filling
2. Wash and peel all 5 apples. Use a peeler as you would for a carrot... it works WAY better than using a paring knife. Lie the apple on its side and cut into 1/4th inch slices. Use a sharp knife for this, since you will be cutting right through the seeds.
3. Once you have peel-less, round apple slices, cut out the core by making 4 cuts in each flat slice: two on either side of the core, then turn the apple 90 degrees, and make another two cuts (in a checkerboard pattern) around the core. You are now left with 9 apple 'chunks'.. discard the middlemost square since it contains seeds. Repeat until you have each slice divided.
4. Place all chunks into the 8 x 8 baking pan. Pour 1/2 c. sugar over apples and mix. Also sprinkle generously with cinnamon (and a pinch of nutmeg) till it suits your taste.
Crumble Topping
5. In a medium-sized bowl, combine rice flour and xanthan gum. Stir in sugar until all is well combined.
6. Retrieve butter from freezer.. it should be hard. Carefully drop butter into flour mixture by cutting off small 'flakes' at a time.** Stir butter flakes into flour every tbsp or so in order to not clump all pieces together (this is what makes the crumble crust crumbly). Flour should coat butter and crust should appear like coarse cornmeal when correctly prepared.
7. Spoon topping over apples in pan.. don't mix. Cover pan with Aluminum foil and place in freezer overnight, or until FULLY frozen.
**Use a pastry cutter or food processor if you have one!!
To cook:
8. Preheat oven to 450 F. Remove apple pie from freezer, remove foil and place in hot oven.
9. Cook 15- 20 minutes at high temp, then, decrease oven temperature to 350 F and bake ANOTHER 30 - 45 minutes at lower temp (it cooks a total of 50-6o minutes).
10. Serve warm, or cold. Try it topped with vanilla ice cream or cinnamon whipping cream.