BLOG POST
MOTHER'S DAY BLACKBERRY
PEACH COBBLER
It is Mother’s Day
Weekend. To feel closer to my Mom when I miss her, I cook something.
My grandmother, Janie,
whom I called Granny, is my namesake. Or am I hers? I am named for her.
Granny taught me to bake
my first cake. I was five or six.
I still remember the
recipe:
1 cup of butter
2 cups of sugar
3 cups of flour
4 eggs
Add a little milk, but
not too much and do not beat the batter too long: it would make the cake tough.
We mixed the items one
by one and we beat the mixture with a big spoon and …woman power. This was 1959
in the summer. We had electricity, but no luxuries like mixers or AC. Even if
we had had such things, it would have been too expensive to use them.
While the batter was
resting a bit, we prepared the pan. We applied Crisco – white lard—and then
sprinkled flour and turned the pan around and shook it so that it the Crisco
was well coated with the flour. Then, we put the batter into, what I now know,
is an angel cake pan.
The pan had a cylinder
in the center attached to a bottom that was removable. I used to
marvel that the batter did not leak out: it did not.
Then, we put the cake in
the oven and went out on the front porch for coffee. Granny drank her coffee.
But I had coffee too. She had these lovely tiny teacups. They held, perhaps 2
ounces, if that.
My "coffee"
was evaporated milk with spoonsful of sugar and drops of coffee. However, my
coffee looked like hers: café au lait.
She was café au lait,
and so am I.
As I write this I am
wondering: is that why I am a coffee drinker? My mom did not drink
coffee.
I am not sure if any of
my siblings drink coffee. But I am a daily at least one cup and most often two
cups. I do not use sugar anymore, but I want my coffee to look… café au lait.
This morning, I wanted
one of my comfort foods that Granny used to make for me: blackberry cobbler.
But... I had no blackberries.
Last year-- or even
three months ago--I would have just jumped in the car, gone to the 24-hour
grocery store and bought frozen blackberries. But this is the Coronavirus
Pause.
So, no 24-hour grocery
store and since I am on self-quarantine, no blackberries for me. Then, it
occurred to me: I have peaches!
Mama made peach cobbler.
Now THAT was comfort food too.
Mama’s peach
cobbler combined the best of both worlds.
Granny’s blackberry
cobbler was made with three simple ingredients: blackberries, sugar, and water,
with dumplings added.
The
blackberries were freshly picked from Granny’s garden. Oh, what fun that
was!
Sunshine light breeze
and singing birds while Granny and I – just us two—picked blackberries VERY
CAREFULLY to avoid the tiny sharp fine briers that come along with the
berries.
When we had perhaps 3 or
4 cups of berries, we washed them. Into the large pot they went. We added
sugar, probably 2 cups, and just enough water to cover them, and to allow the
sugar to turn to syrup.
Granny made biscuits
from scratch. I am not the patient type so that is not something I learned to
do.
But my mother’s idea was
to do some things from scratch and then enhance them. So, I
use canned biscuits for my dumplings.
So, this morning,
I poured canned peaches into the big pot; I think you would call it a Dutch
oven. I poured a cup of sugar into a Pyrex measuring cup, added water and
heated it in the microwave for 2 minutes, 30 seconds at a time, checking it in
between.
I
had not done it that way before. But I am a scientist, so I knew it would work.
I did not know how long it would take; so, in this , I took my time. I am
working on developing patience, see?
While the sugar water was turning to syrup, I put the canned biscuits in
a layer on my cutting board. I cut each one into six pieces.
I
started out flattening them and rounding them into thin dumplings by hand. I
like doing that sometimes.
And moms, and
Grams, this is something that small CLEAN hands would delight
to do, to help you cook.
But, my patience today
only goes so far. So, I used my metal cylindrical water bottle as a rolling pin
.
I flattened the rest of
the cut up biscuit pieces and put them into the pot with the peaches, along with
the simple syrup that the sugar water cooked in the microwave had turned
into. I added some butter, perhaps one fourth of a stick of butter.
I started out cooking
the mixture in the Dutch oven. But I have more experience with and much prefer
cooking with gas. You have heard that expression? "Cooking with
gas"?
If you were born in the
1950’s you have. But it means, for you younger readers, NOW you
are COOKING!
Gas is preferred; but
you use what you have. Twice I had to remove the pot and allow it to cool a
little because it was “cooking too fast.”
I let it cool a bit and
then I put it back on the burner. But I was not going to do that
every 15 minutes, so plan B.
I lined a baking pan
with aluminum foil and poured—yes, poured—the hot mixture
into the pan. I used a large spoon for the first spoonful, but here again,
impatience.
I, carefully ,with
mitts, poured the mixture AWAY from
myself into the pan. I added butter, cut into pats, to the bottom of the
pan. Then, I put the pan into the, oven set at 350 degrees. I baked
it for 45 minutes, or as Mama would say, "till it was lightly
browned"
.
Now, if you like cobbler
the way Mama made it, you would need a pre-made pie crust. Not the ones that
come with pans but the kind that is next to the canned biscuits and comes in a
roll.
Here is what I do:
I take the first roll and lay it into half the baking pan. Repeat with the
other one.
Using a butter knife cut
off the excess dough. That is what you do if you are using an oblong baking pan.
If you are using a pie
pan, prep the pan by using flour plus spray cooking oil. In this
case, you use only one crust on the bottom of the pan.
Put
the crust in the prepared pan. DON’T cut off the excess crust.
Instead crimp it using your fingers into ridges all around the pan. When
you do that, your guests will marvel at your delicious “home-made
pie”, because, it will look so much better than the crusts that
come frozen in the aluminum pie pans. Your crust will also taste better.
By the way: your
pie is home-made. You made it,
right? You made it at home, right? Well, there you go.
You could also, if you
like two crust pies, use the second pie crust to place on top of the pie pan
containing your peaches and dumpling mixture over the bottom pie
crust. Press the two crusts together crimping them around the edge of the
pie pan.
Finally, as another
alternative, you can eliminate the dumplings and use the peaches and sugar as
the filling between two pie crusts.
OR, you can, for the top
of the pie, get real fancy (looking). Put the top crust on your
cutting board, and using a sharp knife cut it into strips about an inch
or so wide. With these strips of dough, you can make a cross hatch
top crust.
I have done that
occasionally, but generally speaking the generous crimping around the pie pan
edge makes enough of a “home-made” impression. Bake uncovered in a
350-degree oven for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.
Allow to cool … it will
be VERY HOT, even if it does not appear so. So, allow it cool
thoroughly. No point in spoiling your treat with scalded lips!
You can always warm it
more if you like. And, of course, some of us will be topping it with ice
cream, or Redi Whip.
Thank you for walking
down memory lane with me. Thank you, Mama.
Thank you Granny. Miss
you both. Love you both.
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