cobblin' genius

I trust that I’ve already convinced you of my die-hard love for Texas peaches. Now, allow me to convince you of the utter necessity of falling in love with my Nanny’s recipe for cobbler. Sure, there are hundreds, even thousands maybe, of sweet little grandmas championing their cobbler methods above all else, but to them I say, “Prepare to meet your doom.”

Those classic, crusty strips criss-crossing fruit in a Pyrex dish? My Nanny tosses her hair at them. (She might stick out her tongue, too; she was a pre-kindergarten teacher after all…) Instead, she has concocted an easy-as-pie, even-more-delicious way to fix cobbler that results in pools of buttery juice, mountains of caramelized dough and valleys of sugar-soaked fruit — and all that after about five minutes of kitchen time.

And on an occasional summer afternoon, after Daddy Tom (her husband, my grandfather) wanders out toward the four stalwart peach trees bordering the driveway in their front yard and comes back with a couple jewels in hand, she’ll whip up one of these babies with fresh peaches from their very own land, and nothing tastes sweeter.

Believe me, you don’t know how darn lucky you are that I’m sharing her recipe with you.

Nanny’s Cobbler

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or oleo
1 cup flour
Pinch salt
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup milk
3 cups fruit (peaches!!)

Melt butter in 1 1/2-quart dish for oven. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and 1 cup sugar. Stir in milk. Pour into middle of melted butter. Place fruit in the middle of the dough. Pour 1 cup sugar on top of the fruit. DO. NOT. STIR.

Stick the whole thing into a 325-degreee oven for 50 minutes to an hour. In my immortal Nanny’s words, you’ll get a “crazy crust great tasting cobbler.”

Sidenote: Every time Nanny invites us up for dinner we hope and pray cobbler will be waiting in the wings. It usually is, and it tends to be even better with a hunk of vanilla ice cream on top.