This week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection, "Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler," was chosen by Amanda of Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake. The recipe can be found on page 415 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours or over on Amanda's site.
Before I made this, I skimmed through the instructions and the "Serving" and "Playing Around" sections on the right side of the page. For serving, Dorie wrote "It goes without saying that the cobbler is great with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Cherry vanilla would be even better."
Well. Cherry vanilla. I could make that! I had more than enough cherries for the cobbler, so why not make the ice cream, too? Actually, I made that first, after I went through and pitted all the cherries, because the ice cream base was going to need time to chill and then the ice cream itself would need time to firm up later.
If you want to read all about the ice cream making part, you can head over here.
But for now, it's cobbler time.
I don't have one of those cherry pitting gizmos. I've found it's easy enough to just put some cherries on a cutting board and press down on them with the flat side of a large knife.
Once the blade makes contact with the pit, the cherry will start to split. All I have to do is pull the cherry apart, toss the pieces in one bowl, and put the pit in my trash bowl. Ta-da! I will admit it gets a bit messy - by the end the board and my apron look like evidence of a cherry massacre. And I guess that's what happened.
Next up - the rhubarb. I bought rhubarb this time, although we do have a rhubarb plant in the garden. But for some reason, our rhubarb hasn't been as big and mighty as it has been in the past, and I'd already used a bunch of it for a strawberry rhubarb pie or something, and I didn't want to wipe out the entire plant. So I bought a rather large bunch, and I think I'll have to chop and freeze the rest of it because I only needed the two biggest stalks for this cobbler. Look - exactly 12 ounces!
I trimmed the ends off and then I peeled the stringy bits from the stalk. And, being me, I thought the little stringy bits looked kind of interesting...so I took a few pictures.
And then, after play time was done, I got around to chopping up the rhubarb.
Then I got the rest of the filling ingredients measured out and ready to go - sugar, ground ginger, and cornstarch.
I whisked the dry ingredients together first, and then stirred it all together in a big bowl.
It looked kind of grainy initially, but by the time the topping was ready, and I had stirred this mixture around a few times, all the dry ingredients had soaked in the juices and everything looked lovely and juicy and ready for baking.
The topping came together just as quickly and easily. I didn't use a food processor - I just did it in a bowl, by hand, and it was just fine. First the dry ingredients, and then the bits of cold butter...
and then the milk (please excuse the blur).
And then the rather sticky dough was turned out onto a floured board and cut into pieces...
And all the pieces were very gently shaped into balls.
Now, in her book, Dorie recommends using an 8 x 8 inch pyrex baking dish. I had one - I don't know where it went. So I used a deep, 8" diameter souffle dish instead, and that worked just fine.
And into the oven it went!
Oh - it smelled REALLY good while it was baking. REALLY good. Mine baked for 45 minutes. I'd checked it at 35, and it looked cooked, but the berries weren't bubbling, so I put it back in for another ten minutes. Bingo. Dark red juice bubbled up in between the balls of the cobbler crust. Yum.
I let the cobbler sit by the window for the rest of the day, and we had it for dessert later that night. I took some photos of it when I served it up, but because the the (lack of natural) lighting, the pictures didn't come out to my liking.
And so, for the sake of Culinary Artistic Aesthetics, I just HAD to dig out some cobbler this morning, and some ice cream, and do the pictures again. And, yes, eat the cobbler and ice cream for breakfast. To my way of thinking, it's not ALL that different from cereal with fruit and milk. And that's HEALTHY, right?
Right!
Now go take a good long peek at how all the other Tuesdays With Dorie members (over 200 and something now!) did with their Cherry Rhubarb Cobblers. And then go make one for yourself! And don't forget to make some Cherry Vanilla ice cream to go along with it!
