Hellooooooo my friends it’s September isn’t that wild? Are you ready for summer to be over? I am for sure, I really was that girl that got a pumpkin spice latte the day it came out, even if it was still August. I won’t apologize for it either so don’t even ASK. But, before we get to this fricken Blueberry Clafoutis, I hope we all had lovely Labor Day Weekends! I started mine off seeing the Jonas Brothers in concert (for the 4th time!!) and crying my eyes out, and finished by moving into my apartment! What a time to be alive, I can’t wait to start cooking in my tiny bb kitchen.
Today’s recipe is a classic by Queen Julia Child, one that I’ve similarly tried before here, but this Blueberry Clafoutis is the real deal. Kind of like a cross between a pancake and a dutch baby, a clafoutis is maybe one of the easiest desserts to make. It can be done in one blender (or one bowl with a whisk and some determination), and be in the oven in 10 minutes. It can be customized with other fruits and spices however you’d like. Sound good? Cool cool cool we’ll get to that in just a second.
Before we get started you know what’s coming next, here are 5 things to be happy about today!! ONE. Coming home from a long day and pouring yourself a glass of wine. TWO. A phone call that turns your day around. THREE. Having a crush. FOUR. Finding a new song that you never want to turn off. FIVE. Feeling a chill in the air.
Let’s bake!!
Julia Child’s Blueberry Clafoutis
One bowl, 10 minutes, full of jammy blueberries and a custardy base, there's literally no excuse not to make this right NOW!
Preheat your oven to 350°F and generously butter a medium-sized (I used 9×13 inch) baking dish.
In a blender or large bowl, add the milk, ⅓ cup sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, and flour. Blend for 1 minute until smooth, or whisk vigorously until no lumps are present.
Pour a ¼-inch amount of batter into the baking dish and place in the oven for 2 minutes, until slightly set. Add the blueberries, sprinkle the remaining ⅓ cup sugar evenly over them, and then pour on the remaining batter.
Bake for 50 minutes, until set and slightly golden on top. Dust with powdered sugar before serving, warm, cold, or room temp!!
Good news for anyone who doesn’t think they have time to make this summer peach cobbler today. If I can go to a Scottish Festival and a Shawn Mendes concert on Saturday, spend Sunday college shopping with my sister, AND still have time to make this, so can you. So let’s unpack this. Peaches. Don’t even need to be peeled, just sliced, slathered in batter, and baked until the top is shiny and crisp. Delicious and wonderful and purely peachy. Have I convinced you yet?
This weekend, as mentioned above, I went to a Shawn Mendes concert with two of my sisters. Full disclosure, I bought these tickets last March, and anticipated being just a chaperone. BUT. Oh boy did I have a blast! Don’t you love when that happens? Aside from being in the literal last row of the Barclay’s Center, we were dancing and yelling and oh man that boy is cute.
Buuut, since that was my Saturday, and my Sunday was full of errands, I didn’t even think I would have time to make a post this week. Then, all I could think about were peaches because it’s the end of summer and there’s no better time to have a mind completely occupied by peaches am I right? Then, this recipe came along, and it was fate! I tinkered with some proportions, but I had never tried a recipe where the top is flooded with hot water before baking, and I’m intrigued! Combine that shiny top with the jammy peaches and you’ve got the perfect summer peach cobbler.
Before we get started, here are 5 things to be happy about today: ONE. Switching from your summer wardrobe to your fall wardrobe. TWO. The first pumpkin-flavored treat of the season. (PSL’s I see you!) THREE. British Cadbury candies. FOUR. Sneakers with ankle socks. FIVE. A pair of fuzzy slippers to put on when you come home from a long day.
Peachy Cobbler
An incredibly low maintenance peach dessert, these peaches don't even need to be peeled before they're sliced, slathered in a brown sugary batter and flooded with sugar and hot water for a shiny, shattery crust.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with foil, which will catch the drips from the cobbler. Place the sliced peaches into a 9"x13" baking dish, then add the lemon zest and juice on top.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, 1 cup of the white sugar, and the brown sugar, until fluffy. Add the flour and baking powder until the mixture is evenly sandy. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add in the milk and the vanilla, mixing for an extra 2 minutes until the batter is light.
Drop dollops of the batter evenly over the top of the peaches in the dish and, using an offset spatula, smooth the batter out so that the peaches are barely visible and the batter is no more than ½ inch thick in any place.
Sprinkle the remaining white sugar over the batter evenly, then drizzle the hot water on top. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until the top is crackled and golden.
Allow to sit for 30 minutes so that the filling can thicken, then serve warm. YUM!
Keyword cobbler, dessert, peach
Looking for more fruity summer desserts? Look here, here, and here!
Welcome!! I hope you all survived this weekend’s heat wave by not leaving the house, it was the only way to survive. At my house, we spent the majority of Saturday inside, making brownies and playing Clue, which for once, didn’t end in fighting! We went mini golfing at night and were promptly attacked by bugs, but the ice cream afterwards made it all worth it. Sunday we spent the day at the beach, where the waves were very refreshing but I was pinched by not one, but TWO crabs. You can’t win them all I guess.
ANYWAY, today’s recipe is another one of those ones pulled from my childhood memory vault, one that my Grandpa used to make in the summer when we were over for dinner. Whenever we would spend time at their house, the first thing we’d peruse was my grandpa’s stack of Bon Appetit magazines, which went years and years back. Come to think of it, I’m almost sure that is what sparked my interest in food in the first place. My grandpa was and still is an amazing cook, but with time, it’s gotten harder for him to make elaborate meals. So, last weekend, after saying for years that I would dig out this Apricot Cherry Crostata recipe, I did! I finally got to present it to my grandpa for dessert, and I’ll be honest I teared up when he saw it. He has always had a huge influence on what I cook and has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since the beginning, gosh I love him.
This tart is the perfect summer dessert, its relatively quick, very easy, and it LOOKS so glamorous. Apricot Cherry Crostata, it even SOUNDS fancy. It’s best with peak-of-summer apricots and cherries, but my grandpa always made it with dried tart cherries and it was just as incredible. Nestled in a crisp, buttery crust, and topped with the shiniest apricot glaze, it looks so professional you might have to show your friends the dishes to prove you made this and didn’t buy it.
OH ALSO. Something I have to mention, I met a real hero of mine this past week. If you’ve been around Sweet D for long enough, you’ve seen that I make a lot of recipes from Erin McDowell. She’s a food blogger and writer and so so cool. Well, this past week, I got to take a cake decorating class in the city taught by, you guessed it, HER. It was everything I dreamed it would be. We decorated chocolate cakes with macarons and other treats, and she remembered me and Sweet D and I almost cried. Life made.
Me trying to keep it together
Before we get started, here are 5 things to be happy about today!! ONE. A peach so juicy you have to eat it standing over the sink. TWO. Meeting your heroes. THREE. Baseball games in the summer. FOUR. A weekend with no plans. FIVE. Turning over a new leaf.
Let’s bake!!
Apricot Cherry Crostata
Honey-sweet apricots, dark cherries, a buttery crust, sealed with a shiny jam glaze, this is the most impressive and deceivingly easy tart you'll ever make!
½cupunsalted butter;chilled and cut into small pieces
2Tbspice water
Fruit Filling
7large apricots
1cupdark cherries;pitted and halved
⅓cupwhite sugar
½cupapricot preserves
Instructions
Tart Crust
Blend together the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add in the butter and pulse 10-12 times, until the butter is pea-sized and evenly distributed.
Blend in the water by the tablespoon until moist clumps form. Gather the dough into a ball and flatten to a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 30 minutes before working.
When the dough is chilled, roll between 2 sheets of parchment paper to slightly larger than the size of your tart pan, about 11 inches. Carefully remove the top sheet of parchment and invert the dough into a 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom.
Gently press the dough into the pan, folding the excess into the tart pan so that the sides are double thick. Pierce the dough all over with a fork and freeze for 20 minutes. At this point, preheat the oven to 375°F.
Bake the tart shell for 25 minutes until set but still pale, and allow to cool before filling.
Filling and Assembly
Blanch apricots in boiling water for 1 minute, then transfer to ice water. Peel, halve, and pit each apricot, then slice each half into 3 to 4 wedges.
Arrange the apricot slices in the tart shell as desired, then top with the pitted cherries. Sprinkle the sugar evenly over the top and bake the tart until the apricots are tender, about 50 minutes.
In a small saucepan, heat the apricot preserves until warm and pourable. Strain through a mesh sieve so that only the smooth jam is left.
Using a pastry brush or a spoon, cover the tart with a layer of the apricot jam. Remove the tart from its pan and serve warm or room temperature, preferably with ice cream!
Keyword apricot, cherry, summer tart
Looking for more summer fruit desserts? Look here, here, and here!
