Strawberry-Chocolate Cobbler

This recipe is so amazing I made it two weeks in a row. It calls for 2 cups of whole grain pastry flour, which I don't have, but I used 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1 cup cake flour as a substitute and it worked beautifully. It's quick to put together and tastes incredible. I like that the cobbler part has a chewy bready texture and a rich chocolate flavor. The strawberries keep it refreshing.


One of many nice things about living in California is having strawberries available year-round. My relatives in Ohio are probably lifting their angry fists at me and cursing. They have a few weeks a year of strawberries. That is just not sufficient for my strawberry-loving self! I want to be able to make this cobbler in the cold of winter (Ha! That's funny to say since I live in sunny Los Angeles)!

Jesse Cool, the baker/chef extraordinaire who invented this cobbler recipe, is a name I grew up with in Northern California. My mom made her recipes or talked about her often. She has a well known, delicious restaurant in Menlo Park called the Flea Street Cafe, and more recently she took over the cafe at Stanford University's Cantor Arts Center. Her style is very much about using organic, locally grown, in-season ingredients and promoting sustainable cuisine. My mom has adopted that same philosophy, even joining a CSA, and I'm doing my best to, also (though I'm not quite as disciplined as Jesse or my mom yet). Sorry, it has to be said: Jesse Cool is très cool!


Strawberry-Chocolate Cobbler
Recipe by Jesse Ziff Cool in Your Organic Kitchen: The Essential Guide to Selecting and Cooking Organic Foods

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
2 cups whole grain pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the butter, cocoa, and 1/4 cup of the sugar in a 3-quart glass baking dish (or whatever dish you want). Place in the oven for 3 to 5 minutes to melt the butter. Remove from the oven and stir until well-blended.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and the remaining 3/4 cup sugar. Add the milk and stir until the mixture is smooth. Spoon onto the melted butter mixture, but do not stir.

Sprinkle with the strawberries. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Makes 6 servings.


Step-by-Step in Pictures

Melt the butter, cocoa, and 1/4 cup sugar in the baking dish by placing in the preheated oven...

Don't let the chocolate burn; instead, take the dish out before the butter has fully melted and stir by hand until all incorporated...


Add milk to the dry ingredient mixture of flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and remaining sugar...

It will be thick and goopy at first but stir until smooth...

Spoon the batter onto the melted butter/cocoa/sugar mixture...

Hull and slice a pint of strawberries...
Sprinkle the strawberries on top of the batter...

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-55 minutes...

Let the cobbler cool for 15 minutes before serving...

Serve it up and try not to eat the whole cobbler in one night...

Plum Blueberry Upside-Down Cake

This is a good ROI cake. You put little effort in, and you get big returns. Isn't that the way all baking should be? :) I say this because it's really an easy cake to make, and yet it looks so impressive and difficult when you present it to your guests. Now that's bang for your buck!


And it's not just presentation that wins people over; it's taste. This cake is a perfect summer treat with fresh fruit from the farmer's market, and has a shocking, totally-out-of-character-for-Marni non-chocolate personality. You can swap out other fruit for the ones called for in the recipe, which gives this cat of a cake 9 lives! In fact, I did just that. In the cookbook, the title is Plum Huckleberry Upside-Down Cake, but come on folks, huckleberries aren't exactly everyday produce. So out they went and blueberries were happily invited to the party. David Lebovitz is the inventor and mastermind behind this amazing recipe and if you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that I'd practically take a bullet for the guy (does it have to hurt, though?).


Plum Blueberry Upside-Down Cake
Recipe by David Lebovitz in Room for Dessert
One 9-inch round cake or 10-inch square cake; 10-12 servings

The plum blueberry topping:
3 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup (4 ounces) blueberries
6 to 8 medium plums (about 1 pound)

The cake:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk, at room temperature

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream

1. To make the plum blueberry topping: Melt the butter in a 9-inch round cake pan or a 10-inch square cake pan, directly on the stove top, over low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir until the sugar is thoroughly moistened. Remove from the heat and cool briefly.

2. Sprinkle half of the blueberries evenly over the moistened brown sugar. Cut the plums in half, remove the pits, and cut the plum halves into 1/2-inch slices. Arrange the plum slices over the blueberries in concentric, overlapping circles, or just scatter them evenly. Strew the rest of the blueberries on top of the plum slices.

3. To make the cake: Position the oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes in a standing electric mixer. Stop the mixer once and scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure the butter is completely incorporated. Add the vanilla.

5. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until completely incorporated.

6. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix half of the flour mixture into the batter. Stir the milk into the batter, add the remaining dry ingredients, and stir just until smooth; do not overmix. The batter will be quite thick.

7. Carefully spread the batter over the fruit in the cake pan, smoothing with a spatula. Bake the upside-down cake for about 1 hour, until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

8. Let the cake stand at least 20 minutes before unmolding. Run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Invert a serving plate over the cake and carefully flip over both cake and plate simultaneously. Lift off the cake pan and scrape any fruit that may have stuck to the pan back onto the cake - or enjoy it yourself. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Variation: Make the topping with 6 medium apricots instead of plums, and substitute 1 cup of any kind of berries (except strawberries) for the blueberries.


Step-by-Step in Pictures

Melt the butter directly into the pan over a burner.

Add the brown sugar and stir to moisten...

Sprinkle half the blueberries on top...

Slice about 1 lb. of plums...

Place the plum slices in concentric circles, then sprinkle with the remaining blueberries...

To make the cake batter, cream the butter and sugar, then add the vanilla, eggs, and half the dry ingredients...
Add milk, and then add the remaining half of the dry ingredients...
Dollop the batter on top of the fruit in the pan...

Spread the batter evenly over the fruit, then bake at 350 degrees F for about an hour...

The top will be golden brown when done and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean...

Serve this beauty!

Toasted-Coconut Rum Banana Bread

I came home from work completely exhausted, put my keys and purse on the kitchen table, readying to settle in on the couch for the evening, and then instead realized there was going to be a change of plans as I stared annoyingly at my blue hobnail Fenton glass bowl of four very ripe bananas. Four of them! Doh! Why did I wait? Or more fairly, why did I buy so many bananas when I knew I couldn't eat them fast enough? Or maybe it's not my fault at all. Why does Mother Nature let bananas turn brown so quickly? :(

Back in November, I blogged about a similar experience where I came home to find very ripe bananas on my countertop and had to decide what to make with them. Back then, I chose not to be as predictable as banana bread, and instead made Banana Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. It was incredible.

This time, I decided I would make banana bread. But this is no ordinary banana bread. It's got the flavors of Jamaica with coconut and rum mixed in with the banana. And as exotic and unconventional a banana bread as the title conveys, it's still an easy bread to make. Beatrice Ojakangas continues to be an excellent source for recipes.


Toasted-Coconut Rum Banana Bread
Recipe by Beatrice Ojakangas in Quick Breads

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 tablespoons dark rum
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 3 medium)
1 cup flaked coconut, toasted 5-8 minutes in a 350 degree F oven

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x5-inch loaf pan or three 5x3-inch loaf pans.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, rum, and almond extract. In another bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, soda, and salt together, then add to the creamed mixture. Blend in the banana and coconut. Turn into the prepared pan or pans. Bake 55 to 60 minutes for the large loaf or 45-55 minutes for the smaller loaves, or until they test done. Cool in the pan 5 minutes, then turn onto a rack. Makes one large or three small loaves.


Step-by-Step in Pictures

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs, rum, almond extract, and dry ingredients...

Place your very ripe bananas in a bowl...

Mash them!

Here's your batter...

Pour into your well-greased pan...

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-55 minutes (it took me about 55 min)...

Delicious cross-section with flecks of coconut...

Stately Strawberry Bars

The name of these bars has been changed. Not to protect the innocent, but because otherwise I'd be lying. They used to be called Royal Raspberry Bars. But with only the most amazing homemade strawberry jam on hand (Thank you, Mom, for going through a canning phase recently!), these bars quickly took new form.

It was the funniest conversation when I was talking with my mom about a new name. What means "royal" but works as an alliteration with "strawberry"? A couple of ridiculous ideas were blurted - sexy, splendid, sparkling, swell, stuffy, symphonic (Symphonic Strawberry Bars? Pitiful.) - until we landed on "stately." And there was no contest.

Stately Strawberry Bars
Recipe from The Best of Sunset Cookies
Makes 24 bars

1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sweetened flaked dried coconut
1/4 cup plus 2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (3/8 lb.) butter, melted
3/4 cup strawberry jam
3 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1. In a bowl, mix oats, flour, coconut, 1/4 cup sugar, and the salt. Add melted butter and stir until well blended. Press dough evenly into the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking pan.

2. Bake in a 325 degree F oven until edges begin to brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool about 5 minutes, then spread jam evenly over warm crust.

3. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on high speed, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until thick and foamy. Gradually add remaining 2/3 cup sugar and continue to beat until mixture holds soft, shiny peaks. With a spatula, spread meringue evenly over jam.

4. Bake until meringue is lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes, then cut into 24 bars. Let cool completely in pan.


Step-by-Step in Pictures

Combine oats, flour, coconut, sugar, and salt. Then add melted butter.
Mix well.
Press into pan.
Bake the crust.
Spread strawberry jam over the warm crust.

Whip up the egg whites with the cream of tartar.

Dollop the meringue onto the jam so it is evenly distributed.
Spread the dollops smoothly across the top.
Take a spoon and lift up in random places on the meringue to create peaks.
Bake the bars.

Cross section.
How royal! I mean stately! ;)