Crisp/Cobbler
I had all of these dinky red fruits, and a pint of blueberries as well (had I mentioned the blueberries?) so I tried out this Summer Blueberry Crisp recipe that google cleverly found for me. (The rest of her blog is also quite good.)
I didn't actually have two pints of blueberries, and my red currants actually came out to a cup after I had snacked on some, so I cut up a pear to use up the rest of the topping.
I am also... an experimental baker. Yes, this strikes fear into the heart of real bakers anywhere. I will cheerfully modify a recipe I've never tried before. In this case, I didn't actually have light brown sugar. I had some stuff that was basically fresh out of the vat raw sugar, like brown sugar only crumblier and not as crystallized (I cannot recall the name of this primal sugar stage, since it somehow ended up in an unlabelled jar, but it's nice tasting and can in fact be baked with) and some turbinado. So I mixed those.
Oh, and I was out of canola oil, and I'm trying to avoid dairy, so I used sunflower oil (neutral tasting) with a glug of walnut oil for flavor.
The red currants had been rather sour in snacking, so I mixed some sugar in with them. I mixed some cinnamon in with the pears and blueberries, but figured they'd be plenty sweet. I distributed everything between the variously sized ramekins I had (danger Will Robinson!) and popped it all in the oven until each specimen was bubbling, 20 minutes for the small ramekins and 25 for the larger one.
Results:
Pear crisp in small ramekins. Pears are done fine, but maybe could have coped with some overcooking; the topping was all right but not browned to my taste.
Red currant crisp in medium-small ramekin: the currants are done to the right amount, but mouth-puckeringly sour. I should have added more sugar! I figured the sugar in the topping would do.
Blueberries in the largish ramekin: good topping browning, and the blueberries are done right and have a good texture. But they're kind of boring tasting because they're insipid Trader Joe's blueberries; these would have been way better mixed with the red currants for some extra sour. (Or maybe lemon juice or raspberries in the absence of currants.)
In all cases, Bob's Red Mill wheat-free biscuit mix is a bit, well, "beany" for this application. I should find a more neutral-tasting flour blend if I'm going to make a habit of making sweets... not that I make sweets particularly often. Not that I should make a HABIT of making sweets. The graininess in the topping from the raw sugar grades was good. I'm tempted to add in my mother's secret ingredient of cheddar cheese if I ever do a straight-pear variety; that's killer on her apple pie, and not bad on a pear crisp. (Note to self; find out her proportions for the evil cheese topping of addictive doom; I've made this to her recipe before but then lost the recipe.)
I did momentarily consider lychee crisp. And then realized that I'd burn in hell if I tormented my beautiful delicous lychees in such a fashion. Also, it would be a pain to do all that fruit prep; this is actually a surprisingly prep-light recipe for a baked dessert.
I didn't actually have two pints of blueberries, and my red currants actually came out to a cup after I had snacked on some, so I cut up a pear to use up the rest of the topping.
I am also... an experimental baker. Yes, this strikes fear into the heart of real bakers anywhere. I will cheerfully modify a recipe I've never tried before. In this case, I didn't actually have light brown sugar. I had some stuff that was basically fresh out of the vat raw sugar, like brown sugar only crumblier and not as crystallized (I cannot recall the name of this primal sugar stage, since it somehow ended up in an unlabelled jar, but it's nice tasting and can in fact be baked with) and some turbinado. So I mixed those.
Oh, and I was out of canola oil, and I'm trying to avoid dairy, so I used sunflower oil (neutral tasting) with a glug of walnut oil for flavor.
The red currants had been rather sour in snacking, so I mixed some sugar in with them. I mixed some cinnamon in with the pears and blueberries, but figured they'd be plenty sweet. I distributed everything between the variously sized ramekins I had (danger Will Robinson!) and popped it all in the oven until each specimen was bubbling, 20 minutes for the small ramekins and 25 for the larger one.
Results:
Pear crisp in small ramekins. Pears are done fine, but maybe could have coped with some overcooking; the topping was all right but not browned to my taste.
Red currant crisp in medium-small ramekin: the currants are done to the right amount, but mouth-puckeringly sour. I should have added more sugar! I figured the sugar in the topping would do.
Blueberries in the largish ramekin: good topping browning, and the blueberries are done right and have a good texture. But they're kind of boring tasting because they're insipid Trader Joe's blueberries; these would have been way better mixed with the red currants for some extra sour. (Or maybe lemon juice or raspberries in the absence of currants.)
In all cases, Bob's Red Mill wheat-free biscuit mix is a bit, well, "beany" for this application. I should find a more neutral-tasting flour blend if I'm going to make a habit of making sweets... not that I make sweets particularly often. Not that I should make a HABIT of making sweets. The graininess in the topping from the raw sugar grades was good. I'm tempted to add in my mother's secret ingredient of cheddar cheese if I ever do a straight-pear variety; that's killer on her apple pie, and not bad on a pear crisp. (Note to self; find out her proportions for the evil cheese topping of addictive doom; I've made this to her recipe before but then lost the recipe.)
I did momentarily consider lychee crisp. And then realized that I'd burn in hell if I tormented my beautiful delicous lychees in such a fashion. Also, it would be a pain to do all that fruit prep; this is actually a surprisingly prep-light recipe for a baked dessert.