Late Summer Stone Fruit
Every summer I look forward to fresh peaches. I am in love with the peaches from the Brook Lawn Farm stand on the Lititz Pike here in Lancaster County. While living in California and visiting PA, I made sure to make a special trip for those delicious peaches. This last trip I definitely bought way too many for us to eat, so I’ve been mulling over what to do with them. Originally I thought peach ice cream, but then I came across a blog post from one of my favorite food bloggers, Irvin Lin of Eat the Love. I remember reading his post for a late summer stone fruit cobbler last September and I’ve been dying to try it since then. Luckily, its pretty easy to put together, so after the kids went down to bed, I got started.
For those of you that are unaware, a “stone fruit” is a fruit that has a fleshy exterior that surrounds a pit, or stone, that contains a seed. In addition to my peaches, I had about six apricots, one plum and a nectarine that really needed to be used as well. The good thing about this recipe is that you do not need to peel the fruit, just remove the pit and slice.
Once the fruit is sliced, put it into a bowl and mix it in with the rest of the filling ingredients. I halved the recipe because for reals, I need to keep dropping this baby weight! Be sure to use a good wine in the filling. I chose a Chardonnay we had on hand so not to add too much sweetness. In addition to the nutmeg called for in the recipe, I also added a few shakes of cinnamon and scosh of ginger. I love the little kick ginger can add to enhance flavor.
When the fruit is all mixed, it goes into a baking dish and into the oven. While that cooks for about 20 minutes, you have some time to get things cleaned up and then start on the cobbler top. The topping is reminiscent of a shortcake or a light biscuit and I’d venture to say you could just make up this dough and use it for a strawberry shortcake. The recipe calls for yogurt to hold the dough together, but to my dismay, I had run out of yogurt! Luckily, I had plenty of sour cream, so I subbed that into the dough and it turned out perfectly! I think it gave it a nice and delicate flavor. After the fruit is cooked, the dough goes on top and then back into the oven for another 20 minutes, to get the topping nice and golden.
Luckily I could watch the Olympics while waiting for this lovely dessert to cook, or I would have been pacing all over my house! I could not WAIT for it to come out of the oven. After you pull it out, you’ll need to let it rest for about 15 minutes before serving. We had both vanilla ice cream in the freezer and fresh whipped cream in the fridge; this felt more like a whipped cream night.
My first bite had a little bit of everything on it, the light and fluffy topping, sweet fruit and the cooling cream. I had to pace myself between each bite. I loved how the fruit flavor shined with barely any sweetening, aside from a bit of honey (and I used a bit of agave nectar as well). The topping was smooth and buttery, yet flaked quite delicately. As I finished up, I put down my fork and licked my plate clean!