Cook the Cover: Canadian Living August 2014

Cobblers are awesome. Seriously. You get all of the deliciousness of a pie but it takes less time to prepare! They don't have to look perfect, be blind baked, or agonized in search of that perfect crust. And just like pie, they're good with a scoop (or more) of ice cream.

What should you do with all that time? Make more fruit cobblers to eat!

This blueberry dessert can be easily whipped up, but don't skip on the "something extras." The ground ginger adds a surprising punch of flavour and the cornmeal gives it a nice crunch. However, I do think that the almond extract could go. Maybe it was the extract I used, but I found it too overpowering.

Blueberry Cornmeal Cobbler
Shopping List: fresh blueberries, granulated sugar, cornstarch, almond extract, all-purpose flour, cornmeal, baking powder, ground ginger, baking soda, salt, butter, and buttermilk.

Preheat your oven to 400F (200C). Gently toss the blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, and almond extract together. Divide the covered blueberries evenly among individual ramekins or into an 8-inch square baking dish.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, 1/4 cup of the cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add in the butter and cut it in until the mixture resembles crumbs. Drizzle in buttermilk, stirring with a fork to form soft, sticky dough. With a spoon or ice cream scoop, drop 1 scoop (if using individual ramekins) or 9 evenly spaced mounds (if using baking dish) over the blueberry mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining cornmeal.

Place the ramekins or baking dish on a sheet pan - these bad boys will overflow. And they should, you want that homemade rustic look with cobblers. Bake until the crumble is golden, about 35 minutes.

Serve warm with cold ice cream. Then, dig in!

Things to keep in mind when you're making cobblers:

The fruit does shrink when it's being baked! So don't worry about filling up the ramekins a bit more. The height will eventually sink in.

The crumble can be mixed by hand! No need for a stand mixer here. The crumble is also designed to spread, so don't worry about flattening it over the fruit mixture. The mounds will level itself out when it's in the hot oven.

As I said before, bake these with a sheet pan underneath to catch any bubbling goodness that spills over!

See what other bloggers thought about the recipe here.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by Canadian Living and I received compensation for it. There was no requirement to produce a positive review of this recipe. All opinions are our own.

Blueberry Pie

We had ordered some products (we got mini pans and a zester) from CSN Stores for review. I want to say that their website is easy to use and ordering was quite simple. They ship pretty fast and keep you updated on each item's transit!

To test our new products, I had thought it would be fun for Howard to make some pies:

Wow. The perfect pie dough is hard to make! Howard and I were pretty sad about the way ours turned out, I think we may need to learn the techniques and practice more. With that being said, this is no reflection of the recipe we tried, we're pretty sure we messed up because the dough didn't turn out as flaky as it should. We will keep practicing in order to add pies to our repertoire!

Pie Dough
Adopted from The Grand Central Baking Book
(Makes one 10- to 12-ounce disk)

1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 stick of cold unsalted butter
3 tablespoons of cold water
Omitted 1 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice (maybe this is where we went wrong?)

1. Measure out your flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Let is refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.
2. Dice the cold butter into 1/2 inch cubes and toss them with the flour mixture.
   
   
3. Add in your cold water. (But don't. This is where you're suppose to add the cold water to the lemon juice, so do that instead.)
4. We mixed our dough by hand, move quickly so that your hands don't warm up the butter. Use your fingertips and thumbs to rub the butter together with the dry ingredients. The butter should be cold enough that you're coating the butter cubes with the flour.
5. Stop mixing when the texture of the flour changes from silky to measly.
6. You can hydrate your dough with the cold water and lemon juice mixture, one tablespoon at a time.
   
7. Check your dough, if it holds together, it's ready. If it's dry and crumbly, mix a little longer before adding more water.
8. When the dough has the proper amount of water, it will come together with minimal effort and no deliberate packing.
9. Wrap the dough tightly and chill it (don't roll it out, it isn't ready to be used yet) for at least 1 to 2 hours or overnight (we left it overnight).
   

Blueberry Filling
Adopted from The Grand Central Baking Book
(Makes about 3 to 4 servings)

2 cups of blueberries
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon zest
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F).
2. Begin by zesting your lemon and squeezing out the lemon juice.
   
   The Microplane zester was easy to use and easy to clean. Look at how quick Howard is zesting!
   
   
3. Toss the blueberries with the sugar and lemon zest.
   
   
   
4. Combine the cornstarch and lemon juice, stir it a little.
5. Roll out your pie dough, work quickly so that the dough doesn't soften. If it becomes too soft or sticky, cover it and refrigerate until firm.
6. Place your rolled out pie dough in your pan and trim off the excess sides.
   
   
7. Pour your blueberry filling in.
   
   
8. Bake for 20 minutes until the crust is a rich golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Funny note: our crust remained quite pale and did not reach a golden brown colour. =(
   
   

The blueberry filling was really good, so we just have to work on creating flaky, buttery pie crust. The pans we tested out are non-stick and do just as they say. The pies popped out of the pan with ease and were easy to clean (since nothing stuck to it).

Wordless Wednesday: August 18, 2010