Johnny Cake Cobblers

This week for Tuesdays with Dorie, we had the choice of making Raspberry Fig Crostata or to make Johnny Cake Cobbler. The crostata seemed a little more complex and I’m not the biggest fan of fresh figs so I opted to make the cobbler. It was easily scalable and I was able to cut down the recipe and make two little cobblers for me and my husband. I won’t post the recipe here, but you can find the recipe fairly easily with a search of the web. Also, make sure you check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site and see how the other bakers fared with these two recipes.

What makes this a Johnny Cake Cobbler is the cornmeal in the cobbler topping. The recipe calls for plums or apricots, but I think you could use just about anything. I used pluots, which were very nice. I cut the recipe in half and used 4 pluots. It seemed like there was too much topping, an opinion that was shared with a number of the other bakers this week. I kind of wished I would have spooned the topping on more thinly; in some spots, my cobbler topping did not bake all the way through. 

I liked the pluots in this cobbler and I liked the sweetness of the cornmeal cobbler topping. Having some of the topping under baked wasn’t ideal, but I did like this recipe. Half of this recipe makes two quite large cobblers, which were a bit too big to eat at once. I think a smaller cobbler (mine were in 8 ounce containers) would be better. Next time, I will just not use quite so much topping.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan

Strawberry Rhubarb Cast Iron Skillet Crisp

This round of the recipe swap is Blogger’s Choice, where I get to pick any recipe from the blog I am assigned. I have been travelling quite a bit lately and this sort of swap is a lot easier for me to make sure I fulfill my part of the swap! I can always find something great and get it made in the two weeks that I have to make the recipe. For this round I got Jenni’s blog Dough See Dough. Thanks, as always to Sarah from A Taste of Home Cooking who organizes these recipe swaps.

I have made another recipe from Jenni’s blog, the Toffee Almond Magic Cookie Bars , which were a giant hit at our household. I was really excited to explore her blog and try another recipe. I actually pinned a couple of recipes and let my husband pick. He chose this strawberry rhubarb crisp. My husband is a fan of anything made in the cast iron skillet. 

I had some rhubarb in the freezer, and used that. I found that I would have liked about double the fruit filling. It seemed like there was too much topping and not enough fruit. I’m not sure if using fresh rhubarb would have been different; it seems like the frozen rhubarb broke down quite a bit when I defrosted it. I did like this, but I would just double the fruit. That would be healthier, right? Thanks to Jenni for this recipe and Sarah for organizing the recipe swaps!

Strawberry Rhubarb Cast Iron Skillet Crisp

2 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups strawberries, sliced

3 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons flour

1 cup oats

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup nuts, chopped

1/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven 450 degrees. Have a 9 or 10-inch cast iron skillet ready.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the rhubarb, strawberries, 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons flour. Spread in the cast iron skillet.

In a medium bowl, stir together the oats, 12 cup flour, nuts and ¼ cup sugar. Add the melted butter and stir until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle on top of the rhubarb/strawberry mixture. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Cool a few minutes and then serve warm (ideally with ice cream).

Recipe from Dough See Dough

Tropical Crumble

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Gaye of Laws of the Kitchen. She chose the Tropical Crumble, which is banana/mango/ginger crisp. The thought behind this recipe is that foods that grow together should taste good together. Seems pretty logical to me! You can get the recipe for this crumble on Gaye’s blog and check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see all the twists and turns of this recipe created by other bakers.

I was excited when I read that this recipe was selected, because I love apple crisp and I figured it would be excellent with tropical flavors. I read the recipe and realized that it contained bananas, which I don’t like. Following the “things that grow together” idea, I decided to substitute pineapple for the bananas. Pineapple and mango grow together and pineapple seems very tropical to me. I knew that the texture would be different and it would be a bit sweeter, but this is dessert, so that’s ok!

This smelled divine when the mango and pineapple were caramelizing with the brown sugar and butter! The pineapple maintained its firm texture but the mango softens and sort of becomes the “sauce” of the crisp. (This was probably helped by the fact that I don’t know how to cut a mango and they got a little man-handled in my attempt to cut them.) The crumble topping baked up nicely, but the pineapple had more liquid so the crumble didn’t get as crispy as it could have. It was really tasty, with the ginger flavor coming through very cleanly. I really enjoyed this crumble, and I loved what the pineapple added to this recipe.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 418-419.

Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Sarah of Teapots and Cakestands. She chose Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp. I have never baked with rhubarb so I was really looking forward to this. The recipe basically doubles the crisp topping and you add that to the bottom and the top. That’s usually the best part of a crisp so how could you go wrong? You can get the complete recipe on Sarah’s blog and you can also check out the links left by the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers for this week’s recipe.

Rhubarb is one of those quintessential spring items, but in the Seattle area it’s not yet very springy and I was worried about finding it in the store. Other bakers were also concerned about this and there were some conversations about possible substitutes. I went to the store and was able to find fresh rhubarb but it was really expensive. The store also had frozen rhubarb so I went with that. The package had a very similar recipe on the back so I figured I was on the right track.

I think the thing that made this recipe stand out was the addition of ground and crystallized ginger to the crisp topping. Oh my, that was so good! I need to figure out a way to transform the topping into a cookie it was so good! Mine baked up beautifully and the house smelled so good. You basically make a simple strawberry jam for the filling so my house smelled like strawberry jam. I loved the slight tartness of the rhubarb and the spiciness of the ginger added a lot. Eaten together, I thought that it was a little too sweet, but I think it just might have been me. I really enjoyed my first experience with rhubarb and I can’t wait to try other recipes.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 420 and 421

Cran-Apple Crisps

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef. She selected Cran-Apple Crisps which are miniature apple crisps with fresh and dried cranberries. Check out Em's blog for the complete recipe. This is such a perfect recipe and the timing was just right. My local grocery stores have just started carrying fresh cranberries.

Apple crisp is right up there at the top of my lists of favorite desserts. I was so excited to make this since I love apple crisp so much. I like cranberries, too, so I figured that would be a good addition. They grow cranberries in Washington State, near the ocean, and a couple of summers ago my husband and I visited a working cranberry farm. It was very interesting. They harvest the fruit by flooding the fields and raking up the cranberries. Very hard work, but worth it in my opinion!

Like most crisps, this crisp was very easy to make. You make the crumb topping in the food processor, which is the easiest way to make crumb topping. This crumb topping includes coconut, which is a bit different and very good. The crisp is just apples, cranberries, sugar and a touch of flour. Nothing too unusual, but everything came together so well. I loved this crisp!

I halved the recipe and make 3 crisps. I wasn’t sure which baking vessel to use, but this worked out well. (I usually use these dishes to soften butter in the microwave, so it was nice to use them for something more adventurous.) They baked up perfectly and I wouldn’t change a thing about them. They aren’t too sweet and the cranberries add a good tartness. My husband and I ate these while they were still warm out of the oven and had the same reaction: this is a keeper!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 422.