05 Jul
Independence Day
Well we did a bit of cooking; which included items like blackberry cobbler, blackberry cheesecake, potato salad, cabbage salad, a cook out with the usual stuff plus smoked salmon.
We then went to a friends house for fireworks and potluck. Everyone loved the blackberry cheesecake.
The fireworks were spectacular. It was a nice sleep over.
I liked how they used a local firetruck ladder to secure a giant flag for the celebration.
I want the recipe for the cobbler- please? Pretty please? I loves the cobbler- and I bet yours was great!
July 5th, 2005 at 10:03 pmWell you want to start with a home made pie crust. I borrowed the recipe for that from foodnetwork’s Alton Brown:
2¾C AP Flour
2Tbs Vegetable Shortening (or Lard)
6Tbs Butter
Dash of salt.
Chill the butter & lard in freezer for 10 minutes. Cut the butter and lard into the flour and salt in a chilled bowl with a pastry cutter. You are wanting to mix this til it becomes a yellow sand like granular consistency. Then cut it a bit more with a pastry knife til it starts to sorta lump back together a bit. Add ice water (up to ¼C in small small batches at a time) till the dough begins to come to gether into a lump. Place the dough into a ziplock bag and roll it inside into a ball then flatten it out with a rolling pin. Chill the dough for 15 minutes in the freezer along with a 8″ pie pan. Slit down the sides of the ziplock bag and roll with a rolling pin. Transfer the dough out onto a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper and then cover with another sheet of paper and roll the dough out til around 10″ diameter. remove the top layer of the paper and turn it over and place the exposed surface of the dough is in the bottom of the pie pan. Form the dough into the pie pan and then peel the remaining paper sheet off and pierce the crust with a fork along the bottom. Replace the paper into the pie crust and add dehydrated beans onto the wax paper (this is called a blind bake). Bake in a preheated 425°F oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and remove the beans and wax paper. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes til the bottom of the crust is golden.
The key to a good pie crust is literally keeping the dough cold at all times til it is actually inserted into the oven. This produces a more flaky pastry type crust.
Now from this step you have a few options you can simply fill with berry compote and thus have a blackberry tart (pie if you make two crusts and cover) or you can crumble up the pie crust into chunks and cover with a blackberry compote.
My blackberry compote is:
3C Blackberries
¾C Sugar (use more or less til your happy with the sweetness)
1-2C Water
1tsp Vanilla Extract
I boil all those ingredients together til the berries are soft and the juice is beginning to condense just a bit to a thin syrup like consistency.
Pour the berry compote over the broken pie shells and refrigerate til they are adequately soaked.
Another method (and far easier) version of what my grandmother called blackberry cobbler is as follows:
1C Self Rising Flour (or cake flour)
¼tsp Salt
½C Milk
¼C Sugar
1tsp Vegetable Oil
Beat this until it it forms a spoonable batter (add more milk or slightly less to achieve a level sorta between batter and dough like consistency.)
Boil the berry compote as listed above and while the liquid is boiling add spoonfuls of the batter/dough into the hot liquid.
Allow this to rest and serve. This version of cobbler has fluffy pillows of dough that will be soaked in the berry juices.
I usually serve this with a few tablespoons of heavy cream or whole milk to provide more creaminess.
Alton Brown’s food processor version of a pie crust can be found here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_26272,00.html
It all sounds quite daunting but it’s not at all difficult 🙂
July 5th, 2005 at 10:30 pmSounds super yummy. I actually make a kick ass pie crust from my grandma’s recipe. I make a very tart and yummy lemon meringue
July 5th, 2005 at 10:58 pmI would not mind those recipes if you care to share 🙂
July 5th, 2005 at 11:11 pmSure thing- but I’m going to bed now. 🙂 I’ll post them tomorrow
July 5th, 2005 at 11:26 pm