Crusty Blackberry Cobbler

Farm Boy is a certified blackberry aficionado, so when we moved to the country one of our first projects was to plant blackberries.  We don't have a huge number of plants, but they are pretty productive.  Each year we usually get enough for fresh eating, a few cobblers and a gallon or two of blackberry wine.

5 pounds of berries in two days!

My go-to cobbler recipe is the shortcake cobbler from the 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, but since we had so many berries, I wanted to try to make a bigger cobbler with more of a pastry crust than the shortcake.  I turned to my trusty friend, The Southern Living Cookbook (1995).  I was going to say that technically this book isn't vintage, but I suppose at twenty years old it might be.

This is a great cookbook.  I can't think of anything I've tried from it that flopped.  There is a newer edition, but I prefer this one.

Since the recipe was for peach cobbler, I decided to go with my normal blackberry cobbler filling recipe from the Betty Crocker book, but scale it up to the size of the peach cobbler.

The one problem I have with the Betty Crocker recipe is that it calls for all that water.  When the blackberries cook they release a lot of juice, so if you add a cup of water, it makes for a very thin, runny cobbler.  I usually just add a tablespoon or two for my regular cobbler.  I scaled up to a quarter cup for the big cobbler and I thought it was a little runny.  My taste testers liked the extra juice.

Since I seem to have lost my pie crust mojo, I am going to take the coward's way out and just call for a crust for a double crust pie.  Trust me, you don't want any pie crust making hints from me, unless you enjoy placing your pie crusts directly into the trash.

Hot berry deliciousness

The directions calls for weaving the crust into a lattice design, but dipping my fingers into a pan that just came out of a 475F oven didn't seem like a good idea, so I skipped the weaving part.  Again, coward.  I do not have asbestos fingers!

Yay for leftover pie crust and pie crust cookies!

Crusty Blackberry Cobbler (Printable Recipe)

Ingredients

Pastry for double-crust pie

8 cups blackberries
2 cups sugar
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water
1/2 Tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 475F.  Lightly butter an 8-inch square pan.

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a large saucepan, stirring well.  Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has come to a boil and thickened slightly. Set aside to cool.

Roll half of pastry to 1/8" thickness.  Cut into an 8-inch square.  Spoon half of berry mixture into the prepared pan. Dot with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon. Top with pastry square.  Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Spoon remaining berries over baked pastry square.  Roll remaining crust to 1/8-inch thickness.  Cut into 1-inch strips.  Arrange in lattice design over berries.  Bake an additional 15 to 18 minutes or until browned. 

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate (and coconut) Marble Bars

I received a request in a comment to look for a recipe for chocolate marbled coconut bars.  In addition to being really excited about getting a request (yay!), I can't resist a good search challenge.  (One of my grandmothers was a librarian, so I think it's a genetic issue.)

After looking through a few books, I came across Chocolate Marble Bars in my copy of Pillsbury's Best 1000 Recipes: Best of the BAKE-OFF Collection.  This book was originally published in 1959 and contains the recipes from the first ten years of the Pillsbury baking competition.  These recipes pre-date the use of the convenience foods seen in later competitions, but instead call for Pillsbury flour and other pantry ingredients.  My copy is a facsimile printing from 2009.  The pages are nice quality, but the binding is about two page turns away from disintegrating.  I saw an original copy at an estate sale a few months ago, but I decided to leave it for someone else.  I'm kind of regretting that now...

The recipe says it was the Senior Second Prize Winner by Mrs. William Sawdo, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, but it doesn't state what year.  Fortunately with a quick search, Google News tells us that it was 1951.

As an aside, I've often wondered why women had to give up using their first names after they married.  None of the three contestants mentioned in the article has her first name listed, but the woman who awarded the prizes does.  Interesting...

These came together fairly easily.  My first attempt at melting the chocolate resulted in an oily, chunky mess.  The second time around I used cream instead of water and got a more ganache-like mixture.

I don't think I've ever 'marbled' anything before - that was kind of fun!

We initially tried these bars while they were still warm, but in my opinion they are much better when completely cooled.  The texture is that of a dense cake and the coconut flavor was more pronounced when cooled.  The chocolate is very "dark chocolate" tasting, which I like, but one of my tasters found it off-putting.  Semi-sweet or milk chocolate might have a wider appeal.

Chocolate Marble Bars (Printable recipe)
from Pillsbury's Best 1000 Recipes: Best of the BAKE-OFF Collection

Ingredients
2 squares unsweetened chocolate (2 ounces)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup hot water (or cream)
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup softened butter
3 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup coconut

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375F.  Grease a 15.5x10x5x1" jellyroll pan or two 9x9x2 inch pans.

Melt the chocolate, 1/4 cup sugar and hot water or cream in a double boiler.   Cool.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

Cream together the butter, 1/2 cup sugar and brown sugar.  Add the eggs, milk and vanilla; beat well.  Gradually add the flour mixture and mix well.  Stir in the coconut.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan.  Drizzle chocolate mixture over the batter in a diagonal pattern.  Cut through batter with a knife in opposite direction to give a marbled effect.

Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes. 

Pecan Date Bars

I found this cookbook a few weeks ago at what was billed as an estate sale, but it was just actually just a store with a collection of junk and old furniture that had been "shabby chic-ed". They did have an interesting assortment of cookbooks, so after perusing them, I ended up coming home with The Gasparilla Cookbook: Favorite Florida West Coast Recipes (compiled by the Junior League of Tampa, 1961). I picked it in part because I liked the pirate-looking man on the front and also because the store owners kept following us around, desperate for a sale.

When I got it home and really looked through it, I found some interesting recipes.  I also discovered after doing some internet searches that it has been beloved by many for decades.  Score for me! 

I needed to make something to take to a potluck and I had a package of dates in the pantry, so I went in search of possibilities and found these bars.

Dates are something I only learned about as an adult and I am making up for all the years I missed out on them by eating them as often as possible.  To me they are like eating brown sugar, but since they are a fruit, I can feel all self-righteous about it. That's right, these bars contain dates, so they are a health food!

This makes a really thick, dense batter that was a little difficult to spread in the two baking dishes.  In my oven at 325F, it took about 40 minutes to bake the batter until firm.  I cut the bars almost immediately after they were out of the oven, but I think it would have been better to let them cool for a bit, since they got less crumbly as they cooled off.  But on a positive note, Farm Boy and I got to sample all the bits that broke off while rolling them in powdered sugar.

Verdict: Very nice!  Since these aren't overly sweet or flavored with spices, they have a nice date flavor and a light texture.  They aren't a fancy dessert, but they are perfect as a nice snack to go with coffee.

Pecan Date Bar (Printable Recipe)

from The Gasparilla Cookbook: Favorite Florida West Coast Recipes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 package pitted dates, cut up fine
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• powdered sugar, for dusting

Directions

Cream butter and sugar, add beaten eggs and milk.  To this mixture add the flour, baking powder, dates and nuts.  Beat well and pour into two 10x6-inch well-greased pans.  Bake in a slow oven (325F) until firm, 30 to 40 minutes.  Cut into narrow bars and roll in powdered sugar.

Lamb Kidneys (don't let an Australian talk you into them)

Farm Boy has a co-worker from Australia with whom he shares a love of lamb.  For years Mr. Oz has been telling Farm Boy how delightful lamb kidneys are and how it's a shame that they are so hard to find here in the US.  A few weeks ago Mr. Oz found a supplier for his beloved kidneys and insisted that Farm Boy and I try them.

Mr. Oz gave us instructions to just butterfly the kidneys and sauté them in butter.  Thinking that England is known for consuming both lamb and kidneys, I consulted Mrs. Beeton's Everyday Cookery (1963) and it recommended cooking them the same way, along with several choices in brown sauces.  I decided to try an onion and mushroom sauce.

Let me just state for the record that Farm Boy and I are both fairly adventurous when it comes to food.  Neither of us is prone to selective squeamishness and we both agree that all parts of the animal should be used.

Except, perhaps, the kidneys.

To prepare this, I dutifully butterflied the kidneys and removed the "cores".  So far, so good.

Yep, those are kidneys.  Cold, quivering kidneys.

I prepared the onion and mushroom sauce, then sautéed the kidneys in butter, as directed.  For the last few minutes, I simmered them in brown sauce, just the way Mrs. Beeton instructed. Again, so far, so good.

Kidneys simmering in my new old Wagner Ware square cast iron skillet.  I hope it will forgive me!

We plopped the kidneys onto plates and sat down to eat.  As I was cutting the first piece off of mine, the aroma wafted gently toward my nose and hit me just as I bit down.

Liver.  Liver that someone has peed on.

I managed to choke down that one bite, but I couldn't even make myself cut off a second piece.  In fact, I had to push the plate to the other side of the table to make the smell go away.  I gave up and ate cheese and crackers for supper.  Farm Boy powered through both of his, but he was retching and gagging by the end.  As an added bonus, he burped kidney all evening long, cursing every time.  I found that very amusing, but he didn't see the humor in it.

So now that we've tried lamb kidneys, I can share my recipe for them:

Don't.  Just don't.

Martha Washington Candy

My mother-in-law made these when Farm Boy was a child. Unfortunately for him, as that time he refused to try anything with coconut, so he missed out.  If I had known him then, I would have gladly volunteered to take his share!

MIL's recipe calls these Chocolate Candy Balls, but I have mostly seen them called Martha Washington Candies.  With the two names, I feel like I should call them Washington's Balls.  Mostly because I want to say that while my brother-in-law is eating one.  He gets really discombobulated when someone uses the word balls.  Obviously there are a lot of conversations about balls when we get together.

I didn't have any paraffin on hand and didn't feel like driving to get any, so I took my chances with straight chocolate chips.  The paraffin would have made the coating smoother, so I rolled some of the less-smooth ones in unsweetened shredded coconut to cover up some of the lumps.  It never hurts to have more coconut.

Martha Washington Candy aka Washington's Balls (Printable recipe)

Ingredients:
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
2 cups chopped pecans
1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 pound semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cakes paraffin wax

unsweeted coconut for decoration (optional)

Directions
In a large bowl,  combine the powdered sugar, butter, coconut, pecans and sweetened condensed milk.  Stir with a wooden spoon until well-combined. Refrigerate until firm.  Roll into balls and place on waxed paper.  Refrigerate again until firm.

Melt the chocolate and the paraffin wax in a double boiler.  Using a toothpick, dip each ball in the chocolate.  Roll in unsweetened coconut, if desired.  Place on waxed paper.  Keep refrigerated.

Flourless Almond Cake

Technically this isn't from one of my cookbooks, but I hope that won't make me lose too much cred.  'Cause I really don't have any to spare.  Or maybe not any at all!

I found this recipe over at Pati's Mexican Table.  I haven't watched the show since our satellite receiver moved on to the great electronics heap in the sky (errr, attic.  Computer parts never go away; they just move upstairs.), but I really enjoyed it.  She always came across as a real person who loved food and she made things that most people would make and eat. I became a lifelong fan when I emailed her about one of her recipes and she emailed me back within the hour and included a phone number in case I ran into any problems. 

The recipe calls for port wine in the cake and a glaze of apricot marmalade and lime juice.  I didn't have any of those, so I omitted the wine altogether and used a little Lyle's Golden Syrup on top of the cake, just to give it a little added sweetness.  I think honey or thinned marmalade would be great on top, as would a little splash of rum in the cake. 

Because of all the eggs and the lack of flour, the cake has a custard-like texture and an almond paste-like flavor (at least without the port).  It was a big hit at afternoon coffee and I will definitely make it again.

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here: http://www.patismexicantable.com/2010/03/flourless_almond_cake/

If you make it, let me know how you like it!

And we're back for 2015!

Between Christmas, catching a cold after Christmas and experimenting with eliminating gluten, things haven't been very bakey around here.  Which makes me sad because baking is what I like to do.  And blast it all, going gluten-free seems to have helped my chronic sore throat and some other problems I have been experiencing, so it looks like it works. 

Obviously I will have to find new ways to bake.

In the meantime, I thought I would share my most recent acquisitions.  A couple of vintage cookbooks and a wacky Mid-Century chair.

On the left is The Bride of Pittsburgh (1951), which includes a combination of tips for brides-to-be and new brides, recipes and advertisements for various sponsors of the book (electric ranges, Irish Brand pork products, Creamettes pasta, etc.). It also appears to be mostly from Minnesota, so I'm not sure how Pittsburgh fits into the name.

 The book on the right, Generation to Generation Czech foods customs & traditions, Texas Style! (1980) by the Czech Club Historical Society of Dallas, Texas, was so battered and torn that I assumed it had to be a good cookbook.  It is missing the back cover and has many loose recipes stuffed in between the pages.  I'm hoping to find a good Czech kolache recipe in there (and I'm even willing to risk the gluten for it!).

And finally, the chair.

Lily and Serafina approve!

This oddly-shaped chair was hanging out in the garage of the estate sale.  The back of the seat is really wide, with the front of the seat ending in a dull point. It is surprisingly comfortable and oozes 1950s charm, so when the guy running the sale said it was ten bucks, I couldn't resist!