I like my fruit as unhealthy as possible...

Mmmm, fresh fruit. The only way fresh fruit is better is doused in sugar and baked with pastry on top.

I have made a lot of cobblers lately using recipes. I decided that I have gotten to the point where I don't need a recipe anymore because it is pretty much impossible to screw it up.

I started with strawberries, peaches, cherries, and blueberries.



Number One important thing to do when using fruit. Wash it wash it wash it. You don't know what was sprayed on it, who picked it, what kind of truck it came in on, and who handled it at the store before you. A way to solve this is to grow your own fruit, but I live on the 6th floor of an apartment at the moment. Rinse in cold water and move fruit around. Let drain. Play with Daphne while fruit is draining... if you have a Daphne. Or just continue to next step.

The Blueberries
First, preparing the blueberries: do nothing to them, throw them in a bowl and move on to strawberries.

The Strawberries
Chop the tops off all the strawberries and any discolored spots.
Chop them up into whatever size you want, I made my pieces about the same size as the blueberries. Then throw them in with the blueberries and move onto the peaches.


The Peaches
Peaches can be a pain to peel. So I have a solution, don't. I flash boil peaches when I want to peel them. Bring a pot of water to a boil, lower the peach in the water for 10-20 seconds. Then transfer to ice water. Sometimes the skin will split on its own, other times you need to lance it with a paring knife. Either way, the skin should peel off easily, meaning you save the fruit that you usually cut off when peeling and the hassle of peeling fruit in the first place. De-pit the peach and chop the pieces up. Put the pieces in the bowl of blueberries and strawberries.



The Cherries
Cherries are by far the messiest. (Note to self, buy a cherry pitter) De-pit all the cherries. I just ran a knife around the edges and pulled the pit out. I left the cherries in halves, mostly because it already looked like I had slit my wrists by the time I was done taking out the pits. Put the cherries in the bowl with all the other fruit. Now you are a ready to make the syrup for all the fruit.




The Filling
I have found the cornstarch and sugar are the best things to use to create the syrup that makes cobbler so good. I have about 6 cups of fruit, so I used 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and a 1/2 cup of sugar. Mix it all together and the cornstarch and the sugar absorb the liquid making the juice. It will be runny right now, but after it bakes, it will be thicker and darker.

Transfer the fruit mixture to a greased pan. Any glass pan will work as long as it is deep enough that it won't run over the sides when it starts bubbling in the oven.

Cut up 2 tablespoons of cold butter and dot it all over the top of the fruit. This helps the dough on top cook and just makes it all around healthier...maybe.


The Dough
The dough on the top of cobbler can be made lots of different ways. Some of it is almost like pie crust, others it is more like granola. I like the biscuit type that you drop on top of the fruit. I also like to use cornmeal instead of oatmeal like most recipes.

Mix dry ingredients together:
2/3 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup cornmeal
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg (if desired, i desired)
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix 1 cup milk and 1/2 cup vegetable oil and add to the dry mixture. Mix it all together until just moistened. If you are using an 8x8 pan, make half of the dough mixture.

Cover the top of the fruit with the dough mixture. If you don't like as much dough on top, feel free to use less. I like lots of dough on the top of my cobbler so I usually try to cover the entire pan.





Baking
Place pan in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes or until the top is brown and the fruit is bubbling.

I recommend putting the cobbler on the top rack and placing a baking sheet on the bottom rack. Sometimes cobbler boils over and can make a pretty big mess on the bottom of the oven.

Remove from oven and let it cool a little bit before serving.

Viola!

Share with Daphne and/or husband if desired.