The Accidental Dessert

I am a self-described pie fanatic.  Rarely have I met a pie that didn’t please me.  With very few exceptions (coconut cream, lemon meringue, to name two), I will devour any pie placed in front of me.

So why is it that I am stumped by the pie crust?  All these years of adoring pie, and I cannot master the buttery, flaky, perfect crust.

Which is why I rarely make pies.  Instead, I wing it and make other fruity delights.  After stocking up on peaches and blueberries at the SM&NC Farm Market recently, I had the very best intentions of making a pie.  But, as usual, my crust-making skills failed and I ended up with a pandowdy.  Or maybe it was a slump.  Or perhaps a cobbler.

After a few searches, I found a list of all these desserts that fall under the category of my failed crust. 

Cobbler — a deep-dish dessert or spoon pie in which biscuit or pie dough is dropped onto the fruit before baking.

Crisp — a deep-dish fruit dessert made with a crumbly topping and baked. The topping may combine ingredients such as brown sugar, oatmeal, nuts and butter that is spread over the fruit prior to baking.

Clafoutis — a cobbler, with fruit on the bottom a layer of custard, and a batter crust baked on top.

Crumble — similar to a crisp, yet not as course.  Usually there are no nuts or oatmeal involved, just flour, butter and sugar.

Pandowdy — a spoon pie, with fruit on the bottom and a bread or pie crust on top.  Partway through the baking period, the dish is taken out of the oven and the dough is pushed down into the fruit to create an uneven topping.  This allows the juices to bubble and simmer above the crust.

Grunt — a spoon pie, with large dollops of biscuit dough on top of the fruit.  Rather than baking, a grunt is prepared on top of the stove and steamed.

Slump — a spoon pie, similar to a grunt, but the dish is baked rather than steamed.

Even after reading up on the various fruit desserts, I’m still not quite sure what I made.  Maybe it was a cobbler.  Or perhaps a slump.  Whatever it was, I’ll call it delicious.  Enjoy!

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

For the pie crust*:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 stick cold unsalted butter cut into pieces

4 T ice water

Combine flour, salt and sugar.  Add butter and using a pasty blender/cutter combine until mixture resembles coarse meal with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining.  Sprinkle with water, a tablespoon at a time, and blend until dough is crumbly but stays together when pinched with your fingers.

Turn out dough into a disk shape and then wrap in plastic.  Refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

For the filling:

3 cups peaches, peeled and sliced

2 cups blueberries

1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

a pinch of salt

1 T butter, cut into small pieces

1 egg white mixed with 1 T water

1 T white sugar

Place peaches and blueberries in a large mixing bowl.  Combine flour, cinnamon, both sugars and salt in a separate bowl.  Fold dry mixture into the fruit, then pour out into a deep pie dish.  Dot with butter.

Remove dough from wrapping.  Flatten and break apart, then place on top of the fruit, leaving some spaces between.  Brush with the egg white and water, then sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar on top.

Bake in a preheated 425° oven for 40 minutes, then lower to 375° for another 10 minutes.  Let cool and serve in bowls.  It goes great with ice cream, too.

*The pie crust is adapted from marthastewart.com