Tuesdays With Dorie, Number One (For Me)

I am really glad that I started Tuesdays with Dorie with such a wonderfully simple recipe.  The Mixed Berry Cobbler was very straightforward, and turned out beautifully.  Just what my out of shape baking muscles needed to start with.  Doubly exciting because it's something that I've never made, and don't remember ever having had before.

The TWD rules/standard paractice is that the recipe is only posted on the 'hosting' blog, that is, the blog that picked the recipe (from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours) in the first place.  This time around, that would be Beth over at Our Sweet Life.

In this recipe, Greenspan uses one large plain biscuit for the top.  So, after sending Crane out on an emergency run for flour (it never occurred to me that that might be the one thing Mom would be out of... ) I greased up the pan, and pulled out all of the biscuit ingredients.  Biscuits may well be the simplest thing in the world, but I'm always a little wary of biscuit type doughs.  I don't always have the best luck with them, which is one of the reasons why I usually let Pilsbury do the hard work (also because their flacky biscuits are a comfort food of the gods.)  But, pass or fail, I wanted to make the recipe as the recipe told me to, so I did.  Wonder of wonders, it turned out beautifully.  I didn't have any problem getting it to come together, or getting it into the shape that I wanted.   

In this rather blurry image, I have the filling ingredients.  If you read the recipe, it calls for lemon or lime zest.  I spaced on this completely, so I ended up using orange zest, which worked excellently with the dark cherries and blackberries I used.  I also opted to use the suggested black pepper, which I have no doubt did something wonderful, but which  I couldn't taste it as black pepper, as such.

The filling was barely any work at all.  When I make this again, I will probably use only cherries, and thaw them first, to release some of the extra liquid.  Or try using a little more cornstarch, or other thickener, since the juice from the finished product was very thin.  I don't know that this was specifically because they were frozen (which Dorie says is fine) or because they were cherries.  Perhaps a variation on Alton Brown's Apple Pie procedure, where he drains liquid from the apples, then boils it down into a syrup and adds part of it back in to the filling would work, too.  For all I know, it could even have been because I made the vents too big.

In my one moment of voluntary deviation from the recipe as written, I also sprinkled a little sugar on  top of the biscuit, to give it a little extra crunch and sparkle.  As you can see, it turned out beautifully, even if I calculated my timing a little off, so the last ten minutes of baking interfered with the garlic bread.  I am a little afraid that mom's deep dish apple pie plate may have permanent pink tinge, though.  Ah well, it adds character, right?

I didn't have enough heavy cream left over to make whipped cream, so I just dribbled a little of the cream over the top.  The verdict?  Very, very good.  I personally could have done with a bit more sugar both in the biscuit and in the filling, but that may have had to do with the fruit I used, or the fact that I have a significant sweet tooth.  I've also already mentioned that the filling liquid came out very thin.  This may be a cobbler thing, I don't know.  In any case, it still tasted wonderful, and looked lovely.  I would very much like to try this sometime soon with fresh fruit, rather than frozen.  Just as soon as the local farmer's market has something other than strawberries.  Not that I'm knockin' strawberries, mind you.  I'm just ready for variety, is all.

Oh, and I'm seriously psyched for next week's pick, courtesy of Karina at The Floured Apron: Apple Cheddar Scones!

Comments

[Erin]

Welcome! I think you've got Pillsbury beat, hands down. Mine wasn't too sweet either, but the scoop of ice cream solved that!:)

[Dolores]

I'm also wary of biscuit type doughs... they seem like they're going to be a lot more finicky than they really are. You did a great job with your first assignment... welcome to the mad world of TWD.

[Em]

Welcome to TWD and congrats on completing your first challenge. You did a beautiful job! I hope you will enjoy baking Dorie's recipes as much as I do :)

Have a delicious day!

[Di]

Nice job on your first TWD recipe. Welcome to the group!

[AnneStrawberry]

Welcome to TWD! Your cobbler looks great, way to go!

[Maya]

Good job on the cobbler. Welcome to TWD!

[Susan]

Welcome to the group! It isn't always this easy, though...so you were lucky! You did a great job, too!

[Rebecca]

Welcome to TWD! What a great first recipe, and you did a beautiful job with it.

[Barbara]

Welcome and good work! Your cobbler looks wonderful. The substitution of orange zest sounds like a great idea.
Dorie's cobbler recipe is definitely on the "less-sweet" side, I've seen cobbler recipes with up to twice as much sugar in the berries and even more than that in the dough.
Personally I think cobblers should be a bit runny, more so than a pie, so that you can soak up the juices with the biscuit topping (biscuits are so good for that.) It depends a lot on the fruit, though, and it can be really hard to guess right about how much juice your particular batch of fruit is going to yield.
Either of your ideas (increase the thickener or reduce the juices and add them back) would work just fine.