Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Jer: Summer Cobbler/Crisp

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful dinner at The Cosmopolitan Club in New York and finished up with the most delectable peach cobbler I had tried in quite some time. We were sitting outside, the air was warm and the cobbler just screamed like summer. Summer solstice has passed and with it I thought our next cooking assignment could be an easy fruit cobbler purchased with whatever bounty you encounter during your next trip to the farmer’s market.

Last weekend, I could not resist picking up some of the perfectly ripe peaches and rosy strawberries and blueberries. And large bags of beautiful basil were only $1 a bag! So for my cobbler/crisp I mixed my fruits with some chopped basil (which I think is always really nice with berries). With the fruit went a little lemon juice, a bit of sugar and a few tablespoons of the ubiquitous tapioca beads in the red box (tapioca goes into all of my fruit pies as I find it serves as a nice thickening agent).

Would love to hear what toppings you guys use for your cobblers/crisps. I almost always use equal parts flour, oatmeal and brown sugar (1 to 1 ½ cups depending on how much fruit I have). Then I cut up a stick of very cold butter and mix it into the topping until the butter bits are pea sized. This goes on top of the fruit and the whole thing goes into the oven until browned and bubbling.

And for those of you feeling a bit more adventurous, I recently purchased an ice cream maker and have had wonderful results. With my cobbler I made vanilla bean ice cream which was so incredibly delicious. I don’t have a photo of the vanilla ice cream but here is a photo of a mango sorbet I made the other night. I am in love with this new machine and think I will be making a lot of sorbet this summer. All it takes is water, sugar, chopped or pureed fresh fruit and about 30 minutes of time in the machine. So easy, so fresh, and so delicious!