Friday, July 15, 2011

Apple Cobbler

One of my favorite ways to spend time is sitting with grand ladies of Texas and listening intently while they tell me about the food their mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers cooked, 'back in the day'.  I had just such an opportunity last week.  Ms. MaryJo sat under a large Live Oak tree with an enormous straw hat that she'd embellished with hundreds of brightly colored ribbon twists and told me stories.  She talked about killing snakes by shooting their heads off, by chopping 'vermin' up with a hoe and she talked about the food.

One of the things she told me to make was a "real cobbler".  I can't imagine arguing with Ms. MaryJo so I didn't, I dutifully typed out (on my iphone) the directions as given and this is the result.  Yes, it's ridiculously good, easy and I'm going to make it all the time.  This is apple but the same day I made a peach and my mother made a raspberry/blackberry.  It turns out perfect each time and it's old fashioned, pure and ab-so-lutely delicious!!! 

The "recipe" is below the beauty shots.

Heat oven and take a stick of butter or margarine or both (this is half and half) and put it in your pyrex dish.  Shove it in the oven to melt it.

Meantime, heat about 2 cups of some sort of fruit.  If it's fresh, cook it down in a saucepan a little bit with some water and flour.  If it's in a can, just heat it up.  I heated up a can of unsweetened pie filling to which I added a little cinnamon, a squirt of lemon to freshen it, some water and a little flour.  I nuked it. In another bowl, mix the batter.
  

When the butter is melted, pour in the fruit and sort of flatten it out a bit but don't mess with it too much.
  

Pour the batter into the middle of the hot fruit, hot butter/margarine.  Do not mix!  "You can run your knife through to do a figure 8 once or twice but don't mess it around"
  

Bake it 30 minutes then sprinkle it with some cinnamon and sugar then let it cook another 15 or so, until it's bubbly and beautiful.  *I think this is pretty beautiful.
  

She said let it sit a bit then eat it.  So I let it sit, then we ate it.
  

I added a little cream. See how it's thick like a super moist cake with the fruit in layers through it.  Oh my goodness it was so crazy crazy good.  The sprinkle of sugar cinnamon added a really lovely crunch.
  

Connor added cream out of a can.

Apple (fruit) Cobbler ala Ms. MaryJo

Heat oven to 375

1 stick butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups hot fruit for filling with a little (4 Tbsp) flour mixed in
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle

1 stick of butter or margarine (1/2 cup) melted in 9" round or square pan

Add hot fruit to melted butter and spread out gently, don't mix in! 

Mix flour, sugar and milk in separate bowl and pour into the middle of the hot fruit.  Gently run knife through in figure "8" pattern to distribute if you'd like, you can do it without doing the cutting in.

Bake in 375 oven for 30 minutes, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake another 15-20 minutes until it's bubbly and brown and you just can't stand it anymore. 

Let rest a few minutes before you devour it.  

/enjoy!

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