Peaches and Cream

With the first full weekend that J has been back since even before our wedding, we decided to spend part of yesterday picking peaches at a local U-pick farm. One hay-rack ride and many minutes eating peaches fresh off the trees and occasionally filling our basket later, we had six pounds of peaches that we needed to consume over the next few days.

Enter the trusty Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook Bridal Edition (my old stand-by) and a recipe for peach cobbler. Currently, the kitchen smells delicious and we are anxiously awaiting the fruits of our labor (pun intended).


Peach Cobbler, taken from Better Home and Gardens New Cookbook

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar, plus 1/2 to 2/3 cup of sugar for peach filling
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (New Cookbook calls it optional, I say it is necessity)
1/4 butter or margarine
5 cups unsweetened, peeled, sliced peaches
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 egg
1/4 cup milk


Kitchen Supplies:
2 quart glass baking dish
Small saucepan


Preheat oven to 400 degrees. First, mix dry ingredients for topping. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Cut in a half a stick of butter with either a pastry knife or in my case, two butter knives working together until mixture has a course crumb-like texture. Set aside.

Next, peel and slice your peaches. Some of our peaches were a little under-ripe, which is why we opted to use 2/3 of a cup of sugar when creating the filling. Add the sugar, 1/4 cup of water and cornstarch to a medium sauce pan. Heat over medium heat and stir occasionally until the peaches release their juices and the sauce begins to thicken. Once the mixture begins to bubble over the surface, it is ready to be placed in a 2 quart glass baking dish.

Meanwhile, mix 1/4 cup of milk and egg together in a small bowl--I used a large measuring cup that I had measured out the milk in to combine the ingredients so as to minimize the dishes I got dirty. Slowly combine with dry topping ingredients, stirring just until combined.

Pour peach filling in the bottom of baking dish and distribute six mounds of topping equally over the filling. The topping will slowly spread out to cover most, if not all, of the dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the topping is golden brown. In our oven that meant 24 minutes. Let cool.



Our peaches and cream cat, Woods, rested while we worked. That's okay though, because he can't eat our finished product, as much as he would probably like to...





And, the finished product, which we are sampling as soon as I finish this post.