"If You're Afraid of Butter, Use Cream" --Julia Child

A friend of mine has that on a sign above her kitchen sink. Ms. Child would LOVE this recipe. I had insomnia a week or so ago, and since we don't have cable, I often watch public television (because broadcast tv is all paid programming after 1 a.m. Bleh.). I love public television. We have 3 public television stations, because of HD programming. Heaven. My favorite is called Create TV. At 2:30 in the morning I'm not too picky, but P. Allen Smith's show, From Garden to Table, is wonderful! This particular early morning, he had someone named Capi Peck (restauratuer), and she made a blackberry and peach cobbler that looked so easy it kind of freaked me out. And since I had just bought 5 pecks of peaches, I thought it was some sort of divine intervention. I made it the next day. You can find the original recipe here.

I adapted it, as I always do, to suit my tastes. In particular, on this day, I didn't have blackberries, and so I upped the peaches in the recipe. I also reduced the sugars (peaches are so sweet, I don't get why she used so much sugar) and butter (butter does make everything better, but it doesn't sacrifice that much taste to reduce it by a few tablespoons). I also added oats for good measure. What's cobbler without oats?

Start with:

I ended up not using the lime, so ignore that.

Mix the flour, oats, salt, and baking powder in a bowl with a fork or whisk. Bring the butter to room temp or slightly melt, and add to dry mix. I hate using a pastry cutter and I don't have a food processor, so I used the back of the spatula to flatten out the butter globs until it was all kind of incorporated. Set aside.

Peel and slice the peaches. Mix with the quarter cup sugar (in retrospect, I'd probably reduce this to 1/8 in the future) and pour into shallow, buttered baking dish.

In another bowl, beat the cream and powdered sugar until just before stiff peaks form. Add to flour-oat-butter mix and mix with spatula until cream is incorporated.

Spread over peaches. Melt the rest of butter and pour over (or slice and put on top), then sprinkle with sugar. Bake.

Ta-da! Serve with ice cream while still warm!

Complete recipe:

Peach Cobbler

• 4+ cups peaches, peeled, cut (about 5-6 small peaches or 3-4 large)
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup oats
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 6 tbsp. and 2-3 tbsp. butter, unsalted
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tbsp. powdered sugar
• 2-3 tbsp butter, melted
• Another 1/8 cup sugar (less really)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a shallow ovenproof dish. Combine and sugar and mix. Pour fruit into the buttered dish.

Combine flour, oats, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and mix together (I use a large whisk). Slightly melt 8 tbspn butter. Add to flour mix and with a flat, hard spatula. Frequently, flatten the mix with the back of the spatula and then scoop around the side of the bowl, mixing flour mixture and butter thoroughly, until butter is incorporated thoroughly. Mix will be crumbly.

Beat the half cup of heavy cream and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until peaks form (but not for as long as you would to use it for a topping.) Add the cream to the flour mixture and mix until incorporated. Most of the dough will be quite soft and some will be crumbly.

Spread the dough over the peach mixture. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and drizzle over the dough. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/8 cup of sugar.

Bake the cobbler for 35-40 minutes or until the dough begins to turn a light brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream (as soon as possible!).

I'm starting to share stuff at link parties. I shared this one at A Vision to Remember.

My next blog entry will be a recipe for something like a warm corn relish, or what I am calling Cornfetti! Yum!