Peach Cobbler, Cookies

Because I had peaches.

I spent the day baking today, with the bedroom air conditioner (only air conditioner) on full blast and the bedroom door open, with a fan in the hallway directing the cool air into the kitchen.

What? I wanted to bake.

I made bacon and onion quiche, banana almond muffins, and peach cobbler cookies. 

Yes, peach cobbler in a cookie.

I'm back at turning things that aren't cookies into cookies. And making way too many of them.

Peach Cobbler Cookies

• 3/4 c butter
• 1 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cream
• 2 c flour
• 1/2 c ground almonds (or more flour)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 c chopped peaches

And of course, stuff is missing from the ingredient pic. But it's not the vanilla. Because I forgot to put vanilla into the banana muffins, so I made sure it was on the counter for the cookies.

NOTE: I made a double recipe.

Cream together the very soft butter and brown sugar. I opted for brown sugar in this one to get that slightly caramelized flavour that you get from baking fruit. White sugar would also work, and would result in a lighter, more biscuit like colour, but I wanted caramel, so that's what I did.

Add the egg (I doubled things, remember), vanilla, and cream and beat them all together.

Sift in the flour, baking powder, and nutmeg. Or, just pile them up on top of the wet stuff and give the dry part a bit of a stir before stirring it into the wet.

Add the ground almonds (also called almond flour, but not as finely textured as I think something should be in order to be called "flour") and then fold in the peaches.

I contemplated tossing the peaches with a bit of flour or cornstarch, but ended up just dumping them in as is. I was using fresh peaches though. If you're trying this with canned, I suggest opting for the extra bit of flour.

The dough will be very soft, and feel borderline too soft. Fridge it. After only about 15 minutes, the edges will have firmed up, and since you're dropping this by tablespoon onto parchment paper, the edges are all you need. Just put the bowl back into the fridge while the first batch bakes.

When you're baking on a hot day, leave the preheating of the oven to the last minute.

350 degrees.

Bake for 12 minutes. They'll be golden on the edges, but soft and cakey in the middle.

Soft and cakey with sweet bursts of bright summer flavour.

What are you doing with all of your summer peaches?

Apple Pie-Rogies

Tiny apple pies. Because it's too hot to cook a whole one.

 

And because one of the requests on the cookie board was "apple cinnamon" and I really wanted to make the cookies that look just like tiny pies that Taneasha sent me a link to (it wasn't really a recipe since all it did was reshape premade dough and fill it with premade apple filling). But for some reason, that seemed like a lot of work. So instead I made perogies.

No, I don't understand how my brain works either.

Apple Pie-Rogies

the lovely crustiness

• 1 c butter
• 3 c sifted flour
• 1 c icing (powdered) sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 10 - 12 tbsp milk

the tasty fillingness

• 3 apples
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon

apparently we're playing the game of "guess which ingredient isn't in the pic" again

Peel and dice your apples into small pieces.

Toss them into a pot with the rest of the filling stuff and set the burner to medium.

You're going to have to stir these from time to time, but not so often that you can't make the crust while they simmer.

Chop the butter into smallish chunks (and if you stole one of them for the filling, I promise I won't tell) and add the flour and the sugar and the salt to the bowl.

Yes we're making pastry. No you don't have to freak out.

Really, it's one of the easiest things to make. You just have to resist the urge to squish the dough between your fingers. It's gotta be one of those strange lizard-brain things, the urge to knead dough. Like cats do, and small children. Anyway, don't.

Cut the flour/sugar/salt into the butter until you have something that looks kinda like crumbs.

(pic of crumbs goes here... I forgot to take one, you have to use your imagination)

Sprinkle about 6 or 8 tbsp of the milk around on top of the crumbs and then using a wooden spoon CUT through the dough.

Don't stir, cut. From time to time, you'll need to scrape the spoon off. Keep adding a tbsp of milk at a time and cutting through the dough, until you get a shaggy mess that will hold together like damp sand.

You are allowed to squish it this one time only. :P

Turn the crumbly shaggy mess out onto the counter. Don't panic.

Like the nursery rhyme says, "pat it and roll it." Pat it down, then fold (roll) half of it on top of the other half, and keep doing that until it looks like this:

I know, I know, I need the in between pics so you'll believe me that it works and I'm not pulling some kind of Food Network bullshit, but I've only got two hands and they were both covered in shortcrust dough at the time (that's what we're making here: shortcrust dough).

Your apples should be done now by the way.

Chop the dough in half and roll out one half of it. You want it about 1/8 of an inch, or aboout 3 mm thick. 

Using a 2.5 inch cookie or biscuit cutter, or really big wine glass, you should be able to get just over a dozen from half the dough. Ultimately, between the two halves and rerolling the scraps, you should end up with about 3 dozen cookies.

Drop about a half teaspoon of filling on one side of the circle.

Fold over the other side and press the edges together.

I pressed mine with a fork: looks fancy and encourages the edges to stay together.

Oh, um, you should have preheated the oven to between 300 and 325. My oven was being a fucking wack job last night, and I have no idea how hot it was in there, but I'm guessing it was in that range.

Brush the tiny pies with an egg wash of one egg (also not in the ingredients pic) and a few tbsp of milk. You need these extra proteins on top to make sure the pies come out shiney and at least a little browned.

Poke a few holes in the top with a toothpick. If the steam has an easy way to get out it won't try busting through the pressed-together edges.

These take 16 - 18 minutes at whatever temperature my oven was. If the oven is too hot, you'll have very browned bottoms and still white tops. The top will be cooked, but it won't look that way.

They're tiny, they're tasty, they're totally worth the folding and forking.

That is some tender and flaky crust, lemme tell ya. And yes, you can do it too.

I really wanted to make some kind of glaze to go on these (perogies need sour cream), but it was late, and I didn't want to make more dishes, so I left them as is. Plus, I couldn't decide if I should try to make something with sour cream in keeping with the theme, or go with a caramel.

What would you glaze these with?