It doesn’t take much to set me off thinking about a particular dish or recipe and this time, it was this photo. A cobbler! With blueberries! I’m there!

Peaches and Blueberries

If you live in London, you’ll know that to purchase enough blueberries for a proper blueberry pie is to bankrupt yourself. What’s more affordable is to mix a small pack of blueberries with some complementary fruit – and that’s one of the reasons why I found myself drawn to this peach and blueberry cobbler.

After Baking

In the original recipe, Nigel Slater replaces the double cream with soured cream but as I only had the former in my fridge, I switched back! The resultant cobbler was delicious – all soft peaches, blueberry juice, and warm, tender yet crumbly biscuit topping. The original recipe, with sour cream, can be found at the Observer website. Oh, and I probably don’t need to tell you this but it’s best eaten straight out of the oven.

Cobbler

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler
adapted from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries
serves 4

2 large ripe peaches
150g blueberries
1 heaping tablespoon sugar
1 scant tablespoon flour

Topping:
100g flour
55g butter
1 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
1 1/3 tsps baking powder
about 80mL double cream
extra sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius.

Slice the peaches, mix with the blueberries, the 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp flour, and arrange in an ovenproof dish.

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder for the cobbler topping, and then rub in the cold butter. Not sure what I mean? Use your fingers to press the butter between your fingers, mixing the bits into the flour as you go along. When the mixture has the consistency of rough oatmeal or large breadcrumbs, stop. Stir the double cream in, a little at a time, until you get a soft dough. Take little lumps of the dough and flatten them, dust on both sides with sugar, and place on top of the fruit in the baking dish, covering them in a relatively even layer.

Bake for about 25 minutes. The top should be golden brown and the liquids from the fruit all bubbly hot. Serve. (I reckon some vanilla ice cream wouldn’t be amiss with this.)