Texas Blueberry Cobbler

I'm trusting Cook's Country on the Texas part, as I've only visited once and didn't eat anything exciting. It's really a casual blueberry cake.

There's a heat wave in Maryland, so I'm baking this late at night. If it's good enough, the family won't even know about it.

I preheated the oven to 350 Fahrenheit.

I'm using a glass 9 by 13 dish, but cautiously. Consumer Reports has stated that modern Pyrex is a lot less safe than the old stuff. Pyrex used to make borosilicate glass, which is very tough. Not anymore :-) It can break after setting it down on a counter or stove, so I'm taking the recipe's advice an setting it on a wire rack at all times.

I put 4 tablespoons butter in the Pan of Exploding Glass, and put it in the oven to melt.

The recipe called for mixing ¼ cup sugar with lemon zest which I don't have. I do have lemon oil and lemon extract, and I decide to use the extract.

I add 1 tablespoon lemon sugar to 3 cups blueberries, and mash them coarsely. I'm not sure I could mash them any other way, but coarsely is what's called for here.

In a bowl, I mixed 7½ ounces all-purpose flour (1½ cups), 1¼ cups sugar, 2½ teaspoons baking powder, and ¾ teaspoon table salt. I then whisked in 8 tablespoons melted butter and 1½ cups milk. A cake without a mixer! At least I won't wake anyone up.

I removed the pan and butter from the oven and put it on my cooling rack. I poured in the batter, and dolloped over the blueberries.

The cake looked a little sad, so I gave it a swirl with a butter knife, like I was marbling a topping. I made zigzags one direction, the more zigzags perpindicular to the first set.

I sprinkled the lemon sugar over the cake, and gingerly put it in the oven.

45 minutes later, I'm not sure what happened to my pretty swirling. It looks good though, and I am saddened by the 30 minute cooling time.

Thirty-five minutes later, I am very full, and very happy. My new favorite fruit dessert!

Update: the very next day, I re-made the recipe, marbling the batter less.

It turned out MUCH more attractive and just as delicious.

 

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Apple Crumble

Frederick, Maryland has several orchards and we get great apples. I asked for a recommendation for baking at the Farmers Market and bought a half bushel of 2nd Jonagolds. I'm not up on my old measurements, but a half bushel is a LOT of apples. I just can't resist 2nd produce, which is produce too ripe or unattractive to sell at full price. You usually can't pick your amounts though.

I made one of my favorite desserts, apple crumble. The crumble I like is very specific and not very common. I had it in England when I was a kid, and I'm pretty sure it came from a box. It's very sweet and has no oats or nuts. I like both, but not in my crumble, which is about sweetened baked apples and nothing else.

It is also the least specific and detail-oriented recipe I make, which is great for people who otherwise might be timid at the thought of baking.

I got the recipe in the late 1990s from SOAR, the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes, one of the best recipe collections on the early-ish Internet.

My sweetie peeled the apples for me, the hardest part of the whole thing. You can leave them on of course.

The he put them through my fab apple slicer from Willliams Sonoma. It was a recommendation from Cook's Illustrated, and works very well. I'll buy a $20 gadget if it helps me and the kids eat more fruit. These were really good apples—both of my kids and I ate slices before they went in the oven.

I measured 1 cup all-purpose flour, ½ cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 stick salted butter, and ½ teaspoon cinnamon into my food processor.

I then processed it until the butter was in small pieces.

I put all the apples in a 9 by 13-inch Pyrex baking dish, then dumped the crumble on top. I would have mixed it in a little if the dish wasn't so full.

Finally, I baked the apples for 1 hour at 350. We ate the apples as soon as they wouldn't scald us outright.

Personally, I eat apple crumble in a bowl with cold milk like cereal. Cream or vanilla ice cream would be great too.

The imprecision comes from the amount of apples. I use any amount of apples I have, in whatever dish they fit in. I make the same amount of crumble each time, but only use as much as seems appropriate. The mixture freezes very well in a zipper plastic bag. I bake until the apples are soft, and raise the temperature if I don't have a lot of time. It's just apples and sugar, so it's hard to screw it up.

I can't wait until the next time I go to the Farmers Market!

Apple Crumble

Serves 8, scales well

½ bushel apples (a lot), cored, peeled if you wish, and in slices or chunks

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

8 tablespoons butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine ingredients until mixture has a crumb-like texture. You can use a mixer, food processor, dough blender, or your hands.

Put apples into a baking dish. Top with crumb mixture.

Bake uncovered approximately 1 hour until tender. Cool slightly before eating.

 

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Fresh, Raw Fruit "Cake"

A very good friend of mine was having a baby shower, but she doesn't eat sugar or sugar substitutes. I made a "cake" out of fresh fruit for her, and everyone loved it.

I found other examples before I started. There's a beautiful cake on the Kids With Food Allergies Facebook page and an adorable cake with a cantaloupe dinosaur on it at See My Footprints. I was also inspired by The Healthiest Cake Ever at The Daily Dish.

Cake is a sometimes food (with apologies to Cookie Monster). But for some people with dietary restrictions, cake is, sadly, a never food. This fresh fruit cake is a great celebratory treat for those who don't eat cake.


All of the cakes I looked at use watermelon for the cake base. Watermelon is the largest commonly available fruit in North America without an inedible core.

Cantaloupe is great for accents as it is relatively large. I picked purple grapes for the color contrast, and blackberries because they are so beautiful. In The Healthiest Cake Ever, they use bananas, and the white is a great contrast. I don't recommend bananas in most circumstances though, as they get brown and slimy very fast. I would only use bananas if I was serving at home and the bananas could be added just before serving.

My husband did the initial trimming for me. This is a very juicy, messy project, so you will want to use a cutting board that catches juice or line your counter with towels.

I cut the watermelon in half, and trimmed into a circle. I used my cake leveler to make the tops level.

I cut one layer into a smaller circle.

Then I stacked the layers, using toothpicks to secure them. I used lots and lots of toothpicks in the cake.

I used a $4 Walmart pizza pan as a platter. I trimmed the cantaloupe wedges and arranged them into a spiral, reserving one large wedge.

I also attached half grapes to the sides with toothpicks. You will want to use similarly sized grapes, and push in the toothpick before you attach the grape. I used the back of a small metal spoon to push in the toothpicks without poking my fingers.

This is when both of my kids had meltdowns, so I wiggled the melon under a large mixing bowl, and refrigerated it overnight. It turns out that I preferred the melons in a tighter spiral.

The next morning, I used the reserved cantaloupe to carve a rose. I've seen that in many crafts a rose is made with a spiral, so that's where I started.

I made a teacup shape, then cut spiral arcs on the larger surface. I then widened the arcs by cutting and removing wedges of melon along the initial cuts. It would be fine if you cut a continuous spiral instead of the shorter arcs. The wedges you remove are necessary though, as that's what defines the petals.

I decided that the grape halves looked too much like beetles, so I cut them into three petals. I attached the rose and blackberries, then scattered the rest of the blackberries over the cantaloupe wedges.

Here's beautiful Julie with her cake.

The guest of honor ate the cantaloupe rose. I ended up removing all of the toothpicks before cutting the cake.

I hope this inspires you to use locally available fruit to make your own fruit cake.

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