Texas-Style Blueberry Cobbler

Okay, first imagine your regular blueberry cobbler, which usually involves a thick, sweet biscuit dough dropped on top of blueberries.  Now rewind and imagine that instead of that biscuit dough you have a lighter batter - think almost pancake batter - that you drop the blueberries on top of instead of the other way around.  Now imagine that you sprinkle the whole thing with a lemon-infused sugar, and that this lighter dough rises up all around the blueberries as it bakes, and that the edges get a little bit crunchy but the center is still light and sweet and mingled with the blueberries, which have sort of melted into a warm lemony blueberry jam.

I think I have to go breathe into a brown paper bag for a minute.

Anyway, apparently this is how they do cobbler in Texas, or that's what the folks at Cooks Country are telling me.  And whether it is Texas or New Jersey or anywhere else on the planet, I'm here to tell you that this is my new Cobbler Of Choice...I can't imagine ever going back now.  Apparently if you are going to be COMPLETELY traditional, you need to make this with peaches instead of blueberries, and believe me when I say peaches are next on my cobbler list.  And then blueberries again.  And then blueberries AND peaches.  And then....well, you see where this is going.  One way or the other, you need to make this. 

Here's the recipe, Texas-style!

Texas-Style Blueberry Cobbler, from Cooks Country

• 4 tablespoons butter cut into 4 pieces
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 3 cups blueberries
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Place 4 tablespoons cut up butter in 9x13 inch baking pan and put in oven until butter is melted, 8 to 10 minutes.  Remove but leave oven on.
2. Pulse 1/4 cup sugar and lemon zest in food processor until combined, about 5 pulses.
3. Using potato masher, mash blueberries with 1 tablespoon of the lemon sugar until berries are coarsely crushed.
4. Combine flour, remaining sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl.  Whisk in 8 tablespoons melted cooled butter and milk until smooth.  Pour batter into the baking dish with the melted butter.
5. Drop spoonfuls of blueberry mixture evenly over batter, sprinkle with remaining lemon sugar and bake until golden brown and edges are crispy, about 45-50 minutes.
6. Cool about 30 minutes and serve warm.

Print this!

Caramel French Toast

French toast is the teenager's all-time favorite, and I make it a LOT. I can almost make it in my sleep at this point, that's how often she comes into the kitchen with those puppy dog eyes and says, "Mommy, can you make me french toast?"



It's the "Mommy" part that just kills me. She's 17 and I still instinctively whip my head around whenever I hear a little voice call out "Mommy!!" in a crowded store.

Anyway. I thought I knew everything there was to know about french toast, but as it turns out, there was one vital trick I wasn't aware of, and that is that you can caramelize the outside of it with one very easy extra step. Yep, I said caramelize. Can you STAND it? All the creamy, comforting goodness of french toast, but with a thin, slightly crispy caramel coating on the outside.

Now, a few weeks ago I did a post on all fabulous Stonewall Kitchen goodies, and among other things I mentioned this stuff.

Which was the perfect accompaniment to caramel french toast. Although I wouldn't say no to good old Vermont maple syrup too. Drop some of the wonderful blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and/or strawberries that are springing up all around us right on top and you are in French Toast Heaven. The world's best breakfast, although to be totally honest with you, I made this for dinner. Breakfast for dinner. Does it get any better???

Caramel French Toast, from Bon Appetit

• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 6 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 8 1-inch-thick slices French bread
• Powdered sugar
• Fresh blueberries and raspberries
• Your choice of syrup

• Mix butter and brown sugar in small bowl to blend.
  
• Whisk milk, eggs, vanilla, and spices in large bowl to blend, and soak the bread slices in the milk mixture until they are good and soaked, at least 5 minutes. 10 is even better.
  
• Melt 4 tablespoons brown sugar-butter mixture in large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium-high heat. (If you can't fit them all in one skillet then only use 2 tablespoons butter mixture and save some of the next batch.) Spread remaining butter mixture over bread. Add bread slices to each skillet, butter side UP. Cook until bottoms are deep brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Turn slices over. Cook until bottoms are deep brown, 3 to 4 minutes.
• Divide French toast among 4 plates. Sift powdered sugar over. Top with blueberries and raspberries; drizzle with syrup.

Click here for printable recipe

Blueberry Cheesecake Squares

Now this is one of those recipes that has a backstory, so hunker down. A few weeks ago, we celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. We had a wedding cake and great music, and many many friends and family, and it didn't rain. Thank you, Lord.

They had a wonderful time, and then they went off to Maine on a little 50th anniversary honeymoon trip. (Aren't they adorable??). And while they were there, they visited one of my favorite, favorite makers of all things delicious, the amazing Stonewall Kitchen. And they brought me back some delectable Stonewall Kitchen goodies. Including this...

I have big plans for this that involve caramelized french toast and cinnamon and berries. Stay tuned for that one. They also brought me this...

I'm considering my peach jam options. Suggestions welcome. Now brace yourself for this next one...

I don't even know what to say. I am seriously considering just hiding somewhere and eating it straight out of the jar with a spoon.

Last but not least, this was in the Stonewall Kitchen bag...

Along with a recipe card for Blueberry Cheesecake Bars. (Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!) Anyway, this scrumptious recipe calls for making a super-easy shortbread cookie crust. On top of that crust goes a classic cheesecake batter...and then comes the fun part. You take that whole jar of wild blueberry jam (and when you open it up you will see there are tons of teeny tiny whole little baby blueberries in the jam. Deep breaths.) and drop it in spoonfuls on top of the cheesecake batter. Then take a knife and swirl, swirl, swirl the jam through the batter.

Bake. Cool, counting the minutes. Cut into squares. Try not to eat all of them at once. And if you have the self-discipline to put them in the fridge to chill down for a while -- well, the only better than a blueberry cheesecake square is a cold blueberry cheesecake square.

Stonewall Kitchen, have I told you lately that I love you??

Blueberry Cheesecake Squares, from Stonewall Kitchen

Cookie Crust:
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon ice water

Cheesecake Filling:
• 16 ounces (2 packages) softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup blueberry jam. I highly recommend Stonewall Kitchen Wild Maine Blueberry Jam!

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9X13 inch pan.
2. Place flour, sugar and salt in food processor and pulse.
3. Add butter and process until the dough begins to form a ball, adding ice water if necessary.
4. Press dough evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake until crust is lightly golden, about 20 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes.
5. While cooling, prepare filling. Mix softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well blended.
6. Add eggs and mix just until eggs are incorporated.
7. After crust cools for 30 minutes, pour cheesecake filling evenly over the crust.
8. Spoon Blueberry Jam randomly on top of filling and then swirl to combine.
9. Bake at 350 degrees F for approximately 35-45 minutes or until center is set. Allow to cool in pan.

Click here for printable recipe

Blueberries with Vanilla Cream

Blueberries...did you know that there is a gigantic poem by Robert Frost all about blueberries? Here's a teeny piece of it.

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!
And all ripe together, not some of them green
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!"


(And you thought all you were getting on this blog was recipes!) Anyway, I am not at all surprised, because if any fruit deserves its own poem, it's the blueberry. I love them, I love them, I can't stop piling them into my cart at the local farm market...

And while they are amazing in everything from muffins to blueberry cobbler bars, sometimes you just want to eat a pile of them plain...or maybe with just a little vanilla cream sauce, perhaps?

Okay, maybe a LOT of vanilla cream sauce.

Maybe we what we are talking about is not eating blueberries with vanilla cream sauce, but vanilla cream sauce with some blueberries.

This recipe comes from the always awesome Pioneer Woman, so when you drink down the whole bowl of this decadent sauce with your berries, you can blame her, not me. By the way, her recipe shows this sauce with blackberries...and I am sure it would be just as good on strawberries. So whatever sort of berry person you are...cream sauce. Yum.

Blueberries with Vanilla Cream, adapted from The Pioneer Woman

• 1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 cup Sugar, Divided
• 10 whole Egg Yolks (save The Whites For Another Use)
• 2 teaspoons Good Vanilla Extract
  
• Fresh Berries

Combine cream with half the sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to a strong simmer, but don’t boil.

Whisk egg yolks in a bowl with the other half of the sugar. Add vanilla extract.

After whisking on medium for a minute, begin slowly pouring in the hot cream.

After all cream is added, turn off mixer. Pour mixture into the top of a double boiler (or a glass bowl fitted over a saucepan). Cook in the double boiler over medium heat. Stir gently but constantly as the egg/cream mixture slowly thickens.

Watch the mixture: if it starts to really thicken up, remove it immediately from the heat. You want this to be more of a thick, pourable cream than a thick, heavy pudding texture. As soon as you remove the pan from the heat, set the bottom of it in a bowl of ice to stop the cooking process (but be careful not to let ice or water drip over the edge of the pan.) Stir to cool. If you need to use the cream right away, keep it in the ice bath and stir to cool.

Transfer the cream to a container and refrigerate it for several hours before serving.

Click here for printable recipe

Blueberry Cobbler Bars

Ahh, blueberry season, I love you so! Blueberry muffins, blueberry pie, blueberries eaten straight out of the carton. Blueberries, you may just be my favorite berry.



And so it is no wonder that my life got that much better when I found this recipe for blueberry cobbler bars on the Joy The Baker website. She credits the recipe to The Pastry Queen, and whomever the Pastry Queen is, I want to come live in her castle, or at least work in her kitchen, because these were...oh, my my. First of all, they include a shortbread-type crust that is made with lemon sugar. Lemon sugar! Which is made by rubbing the zest of two lemons into a lot of sugar. Among other benefits, it makes your hands smell really, really good.



Now brace yourself, because the crust is made with three, count 'em, three sticks of butter. At this point, it is best just to throw caution to the wind, promise yourself you aren't going to eat the whole thing yourself, and hang on the for the ride.



That buttery, lemon-sugary crust bakes up into this...



..and then you start the truly mind-blowing part, which is the blueberry cobbler topping. Eggs, more sugar, sour cream, a little flour, some salt, and a whole lot of blueberries. Mix it all up and try not to start licking the bowl while it is still full.



Pour it over the lemon crust...



...and wait, you're not done. You've saved a little of the crust batter, and at this point you drop it in little chunks on the top of the berry mixture. (You can see where this is going, right?)



Bake. Dance around the kitchen. Cool.



Warm, chewy, lemony, sugary, blueberry heaven. I've found my thrill...

Blueberry Cobbler Bars, from Joy the Baker

Crust and Topping

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into cubes

zest of two lemons

Berry Filling

4 large eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

2 (16-ounce) packages frozen mixd berries, defrosted and drained

(You can also use 6 cups of fresh berries, or 1 (16-ounce) package frozen berries and 3 cups of fresh berries)

To make the crust and topping-

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a half sheet baking pan (12×17-inch) with butter or cooking spray and set aside. If you use a 9×13-inch baking pan you’ll have thicker bars. Zest two lemons. Measure out the sugar onto a clean work surface. Rub the lemon zest into the sugar with a bench scraper or the back of a spoon. Rubbing the zest into the sugar will release oils from the zest and create a lemon scented sugar.

Combine lemon sugar, flour, salt and butter in an electric mixer fit with a paddle attachment. Beat the ingredients on medium speed until the mixture looks dry and crumbly.

Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crust mixture to use as the topping. Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake the crust for 12 to 15 minutes until it is golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes while you make the filling.

To make the filling-

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the sugar, sour cream, flour and salt. Gently fold in the berries. Spoon the mixture evenly over the crust. You may have to distribute the berries evenly around.

Sprinkle the reserved crust mixture evenly over the filling. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes until the top is lightly browned. Cool for 1 hour before slicing.

Click here for printable recipe

Yogurt Granola Parfait

This week at the Jackson House is "Breakfast For Dinner Week," which we do every once in a while and then while it is going on always wonder why we don't do it MORE. Dinners are quicker and easier to make, they feel very comfort-food-ish, and are pretty light and healthy. And as someone who is out of the house by 6:15 am every day and eats a hard-boiled egg on the fly, it addresses my breakfast food deprivation issues.

The only challenge with Breakfast For Dinner Week is coming up with menus that don't involve having eggs five nights in a row. Egg entries are always easy: this week we are having scrambled eggs with pesto and fresh ricotta, French omelets, French toast (aka bread soaked in egg). Huevos rancheros are always a popular entry, as is pasta carbonara, which is stretching the Breakfast For Dinner concept a little far, but who's counting? In the winter I work in my favorite cinnamon oatmeal with apples and raisins, but in the dog days of summer not even the cooperative Southern husband would be happy to see a steaming bowl of oatmeal for dinner.

Which is why we had such a happy dinner last night with this little gem: nice big yogurt granola parfaits. I filled up our biggest Waterford crystal glasses with layers of vanilla yogurt, homemade granola and fresh berries, and topped it off with a little bit of shredded coconut. I had a tin of butterscotch shortbread biscuits from my last trip to London and we had those on the side, and felt like we had the perfect mixture of breakfast and dessert for dinner.

The "recipe" for this is pretty self-explanatory, and you can and should mix it up in whatever way you want. The only thing I would say is, make sure you have really great granola to use. We have an absolutely fabulous recipe for granola that my talented Southern husband makes on a regular basis. I was all set to include that recipe with this post, but when I mentioned that he looked completely shocked that I would play so fast and loose with his favorite secret recipe. So for now this post is the above description of the yogurt granola parfait. But if anyone just can't bear to live without our secret recipe, email me and I will see what I can do. :-)

Blueberry Pie

Oh blueberries, blueberries, I just love you. I have no self-control when I pass those stacks of cardboard containers of blueberries in our local farmer's market. Last weekend I wasn't even satisfied with one of them, I had to buy TWO. Because you never know, next week they might be GONE. The sensible Southern husband started to very gently suggest that maybe one was enough, but I think he caught the look of panic in my eyes and backed off quickly. He was probably counting his blessings that they weren't flat screen tv's, or Manalo Blahniks. At least if I am going to be obsessive about something, it only costs 4 bucks a container.

Anyway.

Here I was for the second weekend in a row with about 8 cups of gorgeous, fat, juicy blueberries, and you know what that means.

PIE!!!

Even though I have the world's only blueberry-loving dog, who was more than willing to do her part with the blueberry-eating.

I am always looking for the next great blueberry pie recipe -- it's kind of like macaroni and cheese. The last one you made was probably just fine...but there could be another one that is even better! I have a crumb-topped one that is pretty fantastic, but this time I wanted to try a version that had the straightforward top crust. I am way too impatient to do the lattice version, but you do need some holes for the steam to escape if you don't want to deal with a potential blueberry explosion in your oven. I usually just make holes in the top crust using a little cookie cutter (in this case I just used the top of a spice jar). Just make sure you make enough of them to allow for enough breathing room -- usually around 6 or 8.

There are many many many schools of thought about what kind of thickener to use in blueberry pies -- after various trial and error I keep coming back to good old instant tapioca. Blueberries are juicy little numbers, and while you CAN use all kinds of things to make the filling hang together like it has been sprayed with AquaNet, I prefer just a little thickener, and am willing to live with the fact that my slices of pie are going to spread themselves out on the plate a little bit. Note that there is no elegant picture of a SLICE of pie with this post...my pie slices may not be ready for their close-up, but man, do they taste good. If I do say so myself.

So go ahead, give in to that blueberry longing and pile those boxes up in your shopping cart. Blueberry season is all too short not to live it up a little.

BLUEBERRY PIE

• Rolled out unbaked piecrust - your favorite recipe or store-bought
• 3 cups fresh blueberries
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon peel
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons instant tapioca
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

1. Place bottom pie crust dough in 9 inch pie plate

2. Preheat oven to 400

3. Wash and drain berries and toss with sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice and tapioca. Let stand for 15 minutes

4. Pour berry mixture into the crust and dot with butter

5. Cut 6-8 holes in the top crust with a small cookie cutter or jar lid. Ease top crust over top of pie. Crimp edges together to seal.

6. Brush top of pie crust with egg mixture.

7. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and and cook another 30 minutes until crust is golden brown.

8. Cool for 3-4 hours and then serve with vanilla ice cream.