Plum Swedish Pie

The most treasured recipe I have inherited from Ben's family is Swedish Pie, a cobbler-like fruit desert. You can make it with any fruit, raw or frozen. When I make it with plums (=the best way), I like to substitute some cornmeal for some of the flour for a nice texture. I also like to add orange-blossom water or rosewater, like I do with most fruit deserts.

When I make it, this is not a tidy or attractive desert -- I find the topping to be difficult to pour and spread. My mother-in-law's are beautiful! Either way, it will be very tasty.

Plum Swedish Pie

~20 Italian prune plums
3/4 cup white flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar (regular recipe uses 2/3)
1 stick butter
1 egg
orange juice, rosewater or orange-blossom water to taste
cinnamon to taste

Preheat the oven to 350.

Wash, pit, and quarter the plums. Put them into a pie pan and sprinkle with cinnamon and, if you like, with orange juice, rosewater or orange-blossom water. Put the butter in a large Pyrex bowl and microwave just until melted, about 1 minute. Add the sugar and mix well. Beat in the egg, followed by the flour and cornmeal. Carefully pour the batter over the fruit, covering as well as you can. Bake for 1 hour or until solid (if you bake more than one at a time it may take more than one hour).

Serves 8.

Variations: apples + apple cider; apples + bourbon; apple + cranberry; any combination of stone fruits; stone fruits + berries; mango; mango + cranberry; mixed berry or blackberry or blueberry. Thaw and drain frozen fruit before using. If using berries, consider adding some cornstarch with them.

Savory Summer Cobbler -- Take 2

Revisited this. This time, a crust with half whole wheat flour, a touch more cheese; took the unorthodox step of melting the butter first rather than spend the time working it into the dough. (Ben's family melts the butter for their famous Swedish Pie, and it turns out fine -- just different.) Turns out it's better this way - a bit crisp and with more flavor. I might cut down on the baking powder next time and see what happens, as I think the taste comes through too much as it cools (weird, no?). But for a great filling, cook two large sliced onions till light brown, add a can of diced tomatoes and let most of the juice cook off; season with fennel seeds and a tsp of vermouth.

Fig and Apple Crumble

A couple of weeks ago, we bought some beautiful purple figs. I had in mind to make a semi-savory tart with them, but then, lo and behold, we ate a fig-and-arugula pizza at dinner with a friend, so I didn't feel the need to make the very same thing the next day. Instead, a crumble! I've come to love this topping, which is crunchy and tender and buttery but not over-the-top; it's way better than any crisp.

What I did not account for, after a summer of baking with stone fruits, is that apples take a lot longer to soften up. I baked the whole thing for about 40 minutes, but you really need to bake the fruit first for 30-40 minutes, and then the whole thing for another 40, in order to get a truly melting combination of figs and apples. They should be more combined-looking and softer than in the photo below:

Fig and Apple Crumble

For the filling:
2 medium sized red apples, such as Gala, cored and diced (do not peel)
1 pint purple figs, quartered
1-2 tsp rosewater, to taste (3 tsp is too much!)
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ginger

For the topping:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine diced apples, quartered figs, rosewater, ginger, and cornstarch in a baking dish. (Size of dish is flexible: mine is about a six-inch round dish, which yields a deep-dish crumble with lots of topping; equally good in a larger dish.) Stir to mix well. Cook, covered, in the oven about 30 minutes, until the apples are beginning to soften.

Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, combine flour, oats, baking powder, sugar, and lemon zest. Add butter and mix until clumps form.

Take the fruit mixture out of the oven and, carefully, top with topping -- just use your fingers to drop clumps of batter on top of the fruit until it is completely covered (if your dish is small) or covered to your liking (if the dish is big). Return to oven and cook, uncovered, about 35-40 more minutes, until the topping is golden and crisp.

Serves 4-6.

Deep Dish Nectarine Cobbler

This is not very different from the other cobblers I've already posted, but it was the first time I'd made an all-nectarine dessert in some time. Turns out, much as I love nectarines, I like pies/crumbles/cobblers better if there are some berries in there too. Still, not bad.
Make sure your nectarines are dead ripe, or they won't get soft enough by the time the topping is cooked. And use more nectarines than you think are necessary!

Deep Dish Nectarine Cobbler

1 recipe cobbler batter (using rind of one whole lemon instead of half; ok to substitute light cream for heavy cream)

Filling:
5-7 nectarines, sliced medium-thin (not peeled)
3 tbsp-1/8 cup sugar depending on how ripe they are--taste and check
2 tbsp flour or cornstarch
1 tsp orange blossom water (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix filling ingredients in a small baking dish (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6x6, but any shape). Using your fingers, take pinches of batter and cover the top of the fruit; it should be a little over 1/2 inch thick, and there should be almost exactly enough to cover the whole top.

Bake until the top is golden, about 40-45 minutes.

Serves 3-4.

Tart Apple Cobbler

Tart enough to prompt one guest at dinner to ask whether there was rhubarb as well as apples in this cobbler!

Tart Apple Cobbler

1 recipe cobbler batter (see here)

5 cooking apples, skin-on, diced roughly (2 Granny Smith and 3 Braeburn is a good combination)
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
2 tbsp all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 375. In a mixing bowl, mix together apples, sugar, spices, and flour until apples are well coated. Pour into an 11x7 baking dish and bake 20 minutes.

While baking, make cobbler batter (using the zest of 1 entire lemon rather than half). After 20 minutes, take the apples out of the oven (leaving the oven on) and, being careful not to burn yourself, dot the top of the apples with the cobbler dough in a grid of marble-sized dots, leaving space between them. Return to oven and bake about 40 minutes, until the dough is golden and crisp.

Serves 8 or more.

Late-Summer Cobbler

Adapted from something from Redbook, of all places. This recipe is quite small but can very easily be doubled.

Late-Summer Cobbler

Filling
8 very ripe Italian prune plums, quartered
1 large very ripe nectarine, sliced
1.5 Tbsp cornstarch
1/8 cup sugar or a little more if your plums are not very ripe
Squeeze of lemon juice
dash of nutmeg

Cobbler Batter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/8 cup plus 1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Filling: in a 6x6 baking dish, toss together plums, nectarine, lemon juice, cornstarch, 1/8 cup sugar and nutmeg until fruit is evenly coated.
Cobbler Batter: Mix flour, cornmeal, 1/8 cup sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a bowl. With your fingers, rub in butter until the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. Add cream and mix just until blended. Batter will be quite loose and sticky. With your hands, roll bits of batter into strips and arrange on top of fruit in baking dish, weaving if you choose. Leave plenty of room between strips as batter will rise while baking. Sprinkle with remaining tsp. of sugar.
Bake cobbler for about 40 minutes or until top is golden and juices bubble (you may want to put a cookie sheet under the baking pan to catch excess juices). Cool before serving.
Serves 3.