This is our first real vacation, right here at Summer’s end. With my husband’s new business beginning officially and the work traveling we have been doing as a family this summer, we decided that we should take a real break from the grind. We’ve stationed ourselves in the most relaxing place we know, Vermont.
In keeping with Vermont’s chilled out pace, we shopped Londonderry Farmer’s market on Saturday, wandering around sniffing tomatoes, petting roosters (something, sadly, our New York City markets are lacking), and discovering that coming North for a spell has big advantages. We found blackberries. For the second time this summer.
Blackberries alone are very good, but my all time favorite mixture of any two fruits is peach and blackberry. My mother makes peach-blackberry pies that I crave, that I positively long for. Peaches seem to be absent up here, but luckily we had some New Jersey peaches ripening in our fridge in New York that I had packed right up and brought with us. When we found the treasured blackberries, I immediately pictured those peaches sitting in waiting for their little friends.
Now, let me tell you about this cobbler. It is a tradional Southern cobbler of the laziest sort: few ingredients and little work for the cook. I saw Virginia Willis make this cobbler on Martha last year, I thought right away how beautifully it would adapt to a brown sugar cobbler and how easy it would be to include the mini-chefs in the making. For an entire season, we cranked out these cobblers without me ever having to look at the recipe again. Here is our Vermont version of Willis’s Meme’s Blackberry Cobbler.
It is just the sort of thing that you can toss together with what you have. Do not feel at all limited to the fruits we have used here. Use whatever you have available or that inspires you. Frozen berries, too, would work beautifully. And if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of not having real Vermont maple syrup on hand, subtitute a tablespoon of sugar or 2 teaspoons of agave and use a heavier hand with the vanilla.
Brown Sugar Cobbler with Peaches and Blackberries and Vermont Maple Whipped Cream
For the Cobbler:
*1 stick of unsalted butter
*1 pint of blackberries
*2 1/2 c. yellow peaches, washed and sliced into quarter-inch slices
*1 teaspoon of real maple syrup
*1 c. milk, room temperature
*2 t. vanilla
*1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
*1/2 c. brown sugar, packed slightly
*2 t. baking powder
*1 t. cinnamon
*2 pinches of salt
For the Whipped Cream:
*One Pint of Heavy Cream
*1 T. real maple syrup
*1 t. vanilla
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. If you have an cast iron-skillet (8, 9, 0r 10-inch will work nicely), place the butter in it, and slide the pan into the oven. If you do not own a cast-iron pan, then use whatever you do have-a deep dish pie plate, a glass baking pan, etc.
With your mini-chef, rinse the blackberries very well and set them aside to drain while you make the batter.
In a large bowl, measure out and whisk the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Measure out the milk and the vanilla into a liquid measuring cup and have your mini-chef pour the milk/vanilla mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir the mixture a bit.
Big Person: Take your pan out of the oven and pour the melted butter right into your batter. Make sure that you keep a bit of butter out of the batter to coat the bottom and sides of your pan.
Together Again: Stir the melted butter into the batter.
Using your hands, mix together the peaches and the drained blackberries with the teaspoon of maple syrup in a large bowl.
Big Person: Being careful around the hot pan, pour the batter in. Heap the fruit in the center if you’re using a circular pan and in wide middle row if using a square or rectangular baking dish.
Bake until the edges are browned and the middle is bubbling, 40-55 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the cream with your Yummy. With an electric mixture, whip the cream in a very cold bowl (you can place the bowl in your freezer while you’re making the cobbler). When it begins to set a bit, add the maple syrup and the vanilla. Whip till thick but not too thick.
Serve your cobbler warm with the cold maple whipped cream on top.
