Peach Cobbler Recipe and a Boo Knits Shawl!

Peach cobber is an old fashioned taste of summer that is as good today as ever it was!  And with peaches in peak season this is the perfect time to try this dessert.  Rest assured that unlike some shortcakes and other fruit recipes that can be dried out, doughy or otherwise a disappointment a cobbler is a wonderfully moist dessert.  It has a light crust that is perfect for absorbing juice but retaining a bit of crunch too.  If you've never tried this old time summer classic you are in for a treat. 

Another tasty selling point (in case you aren't sold yet) is that a cobbler is a fast and easy dessert to prepare and guaranteed to be a hit with little fuss and none of the additional work of making a pie crust. Not that I'm against pies or making a pie crust.  It's just that making a pie crust can be tricky for those who don't regularly make them.  And there is an extra margin of work that goes into making a pie crust.  Happily peaches, simply put, work particularly well in a cobbler and it's easy.  So I hope you will try and enjoy this recipe.

Peach Cobbler Recipe

Ingredients:

5 or 6 large fresh peaches sliced into thin wedges (or quantity needed to line a pie dish)
1 to 2 tbs. sugar (depending on how sweet your peaches are)
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 tsp cornstarch
Dash or two nutmeg (to taste)

Biscuit Topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/4 cup boiling water

Steps:

1  Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Toss peaches with sugar, almond extract, cornstarch, and nutmeg.

2. Pour peaches into a pie plate or similar sized baking dish and cook for 15 minutes (peaches should be good and hot and starting to cook through - you can even give them an extra minute or two).

3.  While peaches are baking, make topping.   Begin by stirring together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Blend in butter with pastry cutter, knifes or finger tips until mixture resembles coarse meal.  Stir in boiling water until just combined (this will look like pancake batter).

4.  Remove peaches from oven and drop spoonfuls of biscuit topping over them (topping will spread as it bakes).  Baking for approximately 25 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

This is wonderful still warm from the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Recipe adapted from this Epicurious Recipe.

A Boo Knits Shawl ~

It's bright alright and I've decided that's a good thing. This is my new Heaven Scent Shawlette and to be perfectly honest I would never have chosen this yarn colorway if left to my own devices.  But I happened to see Twisted Fiber Art had suffered losses from a fire and was selling a limited edition colorway in a fund-raising effort and I wanted to help out. It was only because the yarn was so fabulously soft and luscious that I was motivated to knit it at all.  And yet. Now that I have this summer shawlette I couldn't be more thrilled with it.  The colors are perfect for summer evenings and despite my reservations this colorway really works.  Somehow.  It just goes to show that sometimes you have to be open to whatever comes your way without prejudging.

This is a single skein of gradient colors that are so popular now with many new patterns being written to showcase their beauty.  But I chose to knit a classic design that is designed for a solid colorway with a yarn that has a lot more drape than mine had (all suggested yarns had a silk component).  So despite neither having a solid color yarn or a particularly good drape with my yarn I somehow knew this was the right pattern for me. Albeit I did creatively block it to better suit my yarn choice which I think is an important factor.  Because I've written about creatively blocking shawls before I won't repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that the edging of this shawl would look completely different if blocked according to the pattern design schematics.  But I think the soft rolling edge really suits this yarn.  Whether or not the designer would agree I do not know!

Particulars:  Heaven Scent (from the Close to You Collection) designed by the Boo Knits (a phenom designer and newbie blogger The Yarn Room); US 6 & 7 needles; 1 skein Twisted Fiber Art, Arial Evolution (light fingering / 100% merino), Phoenix (limited edition colorway), 480 yrds.  This shawlette was creatively blocked to suit the gradient yarn I used.  For more information on how to creatively block your shawls to best suit your personality and yarn choice see my post on the Lunna Voe Shawl. Incidentally, I should mention that while I call this a shawlette the yardage I used is very generous (480 yrds) and if I had blocked this differently I could have made it much larger. Oh, and I should also mention that I skipped adding beads as I thought my yarn was bling enough.

N.B. Yes, that's my Jordana Paige Bella knitting bag in the picture above.  Love it!

Until next time be well and love well and spend lots and lots of time outside enjoying these warm summer evenings and delicious fruit cobblers ~