I am working on developing a recipe for "Peach Nirvana" as a sort of cobbler for a science fiction story my wife and I are writing. Long story. At least so far, but we aren't done writing it yet. The cook in the story makes a cobbler for the crew that is a hit.
My first attempt was to adapt the Lemon Wedges over Shortbread recipe with the peach syrup and peaches in place of the lemon juice and zest. I cut the sugar in half since there is a lot of sweetness in the syrup and peaches and none of the sour of the lemon to contend with.
FAIL
But there were some lessons learned.
Never give up. Never surrender.
Learnings:
- Cutting the sugar in half was a good start, but it was still plenty sweet. Might try with no added sugar.
- The shortbread crust seemed to work fine. Since the filling didn't have the lemon tartness to contend with, it too might do with a skosh less sugar.
- I baked it in a rectangular pyrex in a parchment paper hammock. That was not wholly successful. I wanted something larger to account for the added volume of peaches. Perhaps if I had used two crossing piece that extended much beyond the pan it would have worked. (Funny, that is the way the directions in The New Best Recipe cookbook suggested doing it. But little OCD me couldn't help but take a scissors and trim the paper to the edge of the pan so it looked more tidy. Silly OCD me.)
- The filling didn't set fully. I'm not sure if it needed longer baking time, or if it was the peaches doing something nasty like releasing juices during the cooking process.
Next Time:
- Cut the sugar more in both the filling and the crust.
- Try a different pan, and/or use a criss crossed parchment hammock with long tails
- Sharon thinks I should purée the peaches into the filling.
- I wonder about adding the peaches late in the baking. Pre-heat them and arrange them on top for the last few minutes of baking.
- Or maybe glaze them.
- Or maybe I am close and just need to bake it longer.
- Maybe I could divide the recipe into quarters and do four experiments at once.
Cobblers are often made from juicy fruit. You put the "crust" on top of the fruit.
ReplyDeleteI've made two more attempts. One from this same recipe but in a springform pan and got a good set. Browned the peaches first in butter and the sugar, then pureed half of them to use as the liquid (rather than the lemon juice). It needed more peaches.
ReplyDeleteThe other attempt was based on https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cast-iron-peach-crostata but I didn't roll out the crust thin enough (or maybe had too many peaches?) so the crust didn't fold over the top edge. It still tasted quite good but I got a little burning on top and the filling was a little looser than I am hoping for.