Nectarine goodness
Step aside, peaches. Nectarines make a bid for best cobbler filling, writes David Tanis
EVERYONE loves pie. It’s good for breakfast, with a strong cup of coffee, or in the afternoon. And if it’s offered for dessert, it is difficult to resist. Right now, with summer fruit in abundance, it would seem pie season is upon us — unless pie-making seems too fussy.
If that’s the case, there are any number of easy-to-make pie-like desserts, which vary from region to region and family to family, and are usually baked in rectangular vessels.
Consider all the names they go by: Cobbler, crumble, crisp, grunt, buckle, betty, sonker, slab pie and pandowdy. I’m not going to get into it here, however.
This week, though, is just about cobblers. For me, a cobbler is a traditional baked dish of sweetened fruit with a biscuitdough topping. When well made, it is the ideal home dessert.
Peach is arguably the best filling, but any stone fruit will do — nectarines, plums, apricots and cherries. Berries have their place, too, combined with stone fruit or in all-berry versions.
When I searched the market the other day for ingredients, I chose nectarines, possibly my favourite stone fruit. (Don’t tell the plums, for I love them also.) Nectarines are really just peaches with smooth skins and a certain slightly tart tendency. The market is chockablock with stone fruit right now, and with local berries, too, so I chose raspberries to play a supporting role, to add colour and interest.
There are at least two ways to add the biscuit topping. One is to make a wet biscuit dough and plop little blobs of it over the surface of the sugared fruit. (These are called drop biscuits.)
Another is to roll out biscuit dough and cut it into rounds, which is the route I took. I added candied ginger and chopped pistachios to my biscuit dough, making it almost sconelike.
I find it’s best to bake the fruit untopped for a half-hour or so before laying the raw disks of dough on top and baking for another 15 minutes.
The whole emerges from the oven with a heavenly fragrance, all bubbly fruit and crisp, golden crust. Let it cool a bit before serving, with whipped cream or creme fraiche or ice cream.
NYT
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
¼ cup (30g) all-purpose flour 2 pints (490g) raspberries