Tuesday 19 June 2012

Rhubarb Peach Cobbler - Fruit on the Bottom


I had rhubarb, lots of rhubarb. Actually correction, I still have lots of rhubarb. I also had a handful of overripe peaches that were on their way to the garbage, unless I could think of something to do with them. Now, usually my family is more into crisps. You know with the oatmeal crumb topping and such. Well, I wanted to try something different, so I decided I was going to make a cobbler. The only problem, when I went out searching for a recipe, I found that for some strange reason most people like to make peach rhubarb cobblers with fruit on the top. What?? Sorry, but I was not wanting a cake with fruit on top. I wanted something that apparently didn't exist in anyones recipe books. The other option was that if you didn't want a cake, you could do something funky and melt your butter and pour it over the fruit...I don't know, I read at least four different recipes like this and still have no idea what they were getting at. All I knew was that I wanted a topping that you had to cut the butter into (so not a cake).

I finally found a recipe, but unfortunately the dough called for a lot of yogurt and I didn't have anything to substitute for this, so I kept looking. Finally, I had to settle and make the fruit portion from one recipe, and a biscuit topping from somewhere else. Now about these biscuits. They are good, I mean not what I was expecting, or going for, but still good nevertheless. Because I used some whole wheat flour instead of all white, they had a really good grainy taste to them, but they still tasted like a good scone. Plus, they were super easy to throw together. So, while I originally had in mind more of a dumpling like creation, I am very happy with how this turned out.

The original recipe that I used for the fruit portion called for canned peaches. Now that seems a bit silly to me. The whole purpose of making a crisp or cobbler is because you have all this fresh fruit around that needs to be used up (at least that's why I make them.) So why would you be opening a can of fruit? To make it even worse, they say it has to be peaches in syrup, because you need to use the syrup in the recipe. Well, I was having none of that, so I cut up my fresh peaches and decided that I had to find a substitute. I ended up using orange juice instead. But the original recipe never said how much syrup you would use, so I just added a bit at a time and came up with the magic number of 1/2 C.





Biscuit recipe from food.com. Fruit recipe from recipes.com.

Ingredients

Yields: 9 x 13 pan 

Topping:
2 C. Flour (I used 1 C. white and 1 C. whole wheat and it added a nice flavour)
4 Tsp Baking Powder
3 Tbsp. Sugar
1 Pinch of Salt
1/2 C. Butter
2/3 C. Milk
1 Egg

Fruit:
1/2 C. Sugar
2 Tbsp. Cornstarch
3/4 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/8 Tsp. Salt
3 1/2 C. Peaches
3 1/2 C. Rhubarb
1/2 C. Orange Juice (+ 1/8 C. additional if required)
1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla

Directions

Topping:
~Mix together the dry ingredients.
~Cut in the butter until mixture is crumbly.
~In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk and pour into butter mixture.
~Stir until just combined.
~Set aside.

Fruit:
~Clean rhubarb and cut into bite size slices.
~Slice peaches into chunks.
~Preheat oven to 350 F
~Place rhubarb, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and orange juice in a large pot.
~Bring mixture to a boil, stirring continuously as to prevent it from burning. If it looks too dry, add the additional 1/8 C. of OJ.
~When rhubarb has softened and mixture has thickened, add peaches and vanilla. Stir.
~Pour mixture into an un-greased 9 x 13 pan.
~Place pan in oven and heat for 5 minutes.
~Remove dish from oven and place dollops of dough on top of fruit.
~Return dish to oven and bake until biscuits begin to brown and fruit is bubbling. Approximately 12-15 minutes.

Enjoy


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