Ginger Peach Cobbler

Here is another guest post by Mrs. Belly Full.  As I stated in the last guest post, I’m not much of a desert guy, so if anything sweet gets baked in our house it’s not going to be done by me.  If you’re into knitting, you can follow her blog posts on Wool Durham.

It’s peach season and we couldn’t resist buying a bunch. Inspired by some of my favorite tea, I decided to improvise a recipe for Ginger Peach Cobbler this weekend. It turned out great tasting and easier than you would think.

I started with this online recipe by aeposey from allrecipes.com.  Here is my adaptation:

Ingredients:

6-8 fresh peaches – peeled, pitted and sliced into thin wedges
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbl fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 tsp ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons cornstarch

For topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1/4 cup boiling water
Cinnamon sugar to dust on top (mix 3 tbl sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

2. In a large bowl, combine peaches, sugars, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, and cornstarch.  Toss peaches to coat and pour into baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Tips:

• Use enough peaches to fill either an 8×8 inch square baking dish or a 9×11 rectangular one almost full.  Use more than you think you need (the peaches cook down a lot and our cobbler ended up quite doughy.
• If you don’t want to blanch your peaches to get the peel off, use a vegetable peeler. This worked on the ginger as well.
• Don’t have a ginger grater? Try your Microplane. You could also mince it very fine.
• If you grate your own nutmeg like we do, you can use less. Try just a few swipes.

3. While peaches are baking, mix topping by combining flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. Blend in butter  until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in water until just combined. (I used a stand mixer for this step).

4.  Remove peaches from oven and drop topping by spoonful over them. This topping puffs up a lot in the oven, so don’t layer it on too thick (you may have more than you need from this recipe). Sprinkle entire cobbler with sugar and cinnamon mixture.

5. Bake until topping is golden, 25-35 minutes.

Goes great with vanilla ice cream.  Enjoy!

Want a lighter version of this recipe?  Cut back the sugar a bit or substitute agave syrup and don’t sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Instead of ice cream, try it with non-fat vanilla yogurt (we like Stonyfield Farm organic).

Recipe: Easy Carolina Cheerwine Cupcakes

This post is Guest-Blogged by Mrs. Belly Full (those close to me know that I don’t bake and I’m not big on sweets/cakes/desserts).  She normally blogs at Wooldurham.com. Here’s her post:

This weekend I stumbled upon a tasty and stylish dessert that happened to be extremely easy and cheap.  Got 30 minutes? You, too, can go from this:

To this:

Inspired by this Shelterrific post , I made a typical boxed Vanilla cake mix, but substituted soda for half the water called for in the directions.  The retro ballet-slipper pink of this batch is from none other than the classic Carolina red soda, Cheerwine.

If you are reading from outside Carolina, you may not know about this unusual soft drink. It has sort of a cherry-vanilla or grenadine taste. If you are in North Carolina, you should be able to find this beverage in your supermarket soda aisle.  Outside Carolina, if you are really dedicated, you can try the company’s website.  It is difficult to think of a perfect substitute for this beverage, but cherry 7-Up or raspberry gingerale might come close.

I followed the mix directions exactly, except for the substitution I made (soda for half the water).  Here’s how my cupcakes looked before frosting:

The soda imbues a sweet and slightly fruity flavor on the cake, so I paired mine with a simple cream cheese frosting.  Combine a block of cream cheese with 6 tablespoons softened unsalted butter and a cup of powdered sugar (or a little more if needed).  I also added a splash of the soda for color and a splash of vanilla for flavor.

Here is the finished product:

I think you could come up with many interesting combinations of soda and cake mix, but this one worked particularly well. If you try this, drop us a note and/or a photo. We’d love to hear how yours turn out.

Bon Appétit!