Georgia in My Oven: Fresh Blackberry Buckle

 

When I was in my early teens, my family drove to Georgia two or three times to visit close  relatives who had recently moved there from the Detroit area. My aunt, uncle, and three cousins had settled quite contentedly into a nice house on a woodsy street, in a town with a distinctly southern name--Lilburn. It was a beautiful place for kids and it stood in rather stark contrast to the suburban neighborhood they'd left behind. In fact, their new home was within easy walking distance of a spacious cow pasture.

One of my favorite memories involves the wild blackberries that grew in chaotic bushy tangles near the pasture. Quite tall and guarded by thorns, the vines resisted yielding their fruit. But one steamy morning, undaunted as only teenage girls can be, my cousin Becky and I rose early, dressed for berry picking, and buoyantly made our way down the street. Though the sun was scarcely up, the day was already a scorcher. Armed with baskets, we fully expected to come home bearing a huge load of the black beauties, which my aunt would transform into any number of fabulous treats (ahh, youth).

We knew about the thorns. We knew about the heat. We knew that our sandals and feet would end up coated with a velvety layer of thick dust the hue of wilted rose petals. What we weren't prepared for, however, were the battalions of mosquitoes that engulfed us upon arrival.

I recall a lot of arm flailing, girlish shrieking, and frantic attempts at picking. How long this went on before we surrendered is anyone's guess. All I do know is that when we arrived home and showed my aunt our haul, we were two bedraggled, perspiring adolescents with purple fingertips and an enormous number of mosquito bites. Amused, she chuckled and said something to the tune of, " . . . well, there aren't enough here for a pie . . . maybe we can make cobbler . . . did you eat a lot them on the way home?"

My aunt did make those berries into some sort of dessert, but memory fails me as to the specifics. In any case, I'm sure those were the finest tasting blackberries I've ever had. To this day I think of blackberries as something not easily obtainable, and I guess I'll always associate them with the red soil and voracious mosquitoes of that particular Georgia summer.

About this recipe . . .

This buckle recipe comes to us from Southern Grace Farms, a fresh produce grower in a Georgia town called Enigma. I figure a professional blackberry farm must know how to make the best of its own bounty, so I frequently search for good recipes within such sites. (And, frankly, that town name alone made the recipe worth trying.) This blackberry buckle is simple as can be to put together. It's kind of a cross between a very moist butter cake and an excellent shortcake, mixed together with a bowl of sweet fresh berries. Just remember: The better your berries, the better your buckle! Can't make a tasty buckle out of bad berries.


I reworded the original recipe's instructions, and adapted the ingredients and the proportions a bit.

Blackberry Buckle

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease and flour, or spray with baking spray, a 1 and 1/2 quart glass casserole dish. 

1 cup All Purpose flour (I used unbleached)
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/3 cup half & half
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups fresh blackberries
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup All Purpose flour
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cold
1/8 tsp. kosher salt

In a small bowl, stir together the 1 cup flour, baking powder, and 1/4 tsp. salt. Set aside.  In a large mixer bowl, beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add in the egg until smoothly incorporated.

 

Combine the half & half and the vanilla. At low speed, add in the flour mixture alternately with the liquid--three parts flour and two parts liquid, beginning and ending with the flour.

Pour the batter into the greased dish and spread it evenly with your spatula.

Arrange the berries over the smoothed batter. No need to press them in.

In a bowl, combine the 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, cinnamon, 4 Tbsp. butter, and the 1/8 tsp. salt using a pastry blender or your fingers to make a crumbly topping. Sprinkle evenly over the berries.

Place the dish on a baking sheet to prevent any bubbly spills, and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes. Check the buckle early on to make sure the top edges aren't overbrowning. The finished buckle may still look kind of wet in the middle, but that's okay. The sides and bottom of the buckle should be beautifully golden. This is a supermoist dessert that's gooier in the middle. Let it cool for a while on a rack.

It's delicious served warm or cold. Try it with a little unsweetened whipped cream. You'll be in blackberry heaven.

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Get Your Goat! . . . Goat-Cheese Cake with Mango Sauce and Blackberries

Until now, I don't think I've ever needed to pair the words "goat" and "cake" in a sentence. I don't know about you, but if I've got a cake anywhere in the vicinity, I don't particularly want a goat hanging around.

The seeming incongruity of goat-cheese cake is kind of like the juxtaposition of the words "hippo" and "soup," or maybe the marriage of "rat" and "candy." Not charming images, right? So I understand if you're feeling a little wary.

Goat cheese, though, is quite civilized. It's like a happy cross between cream cheese and sour cream--kind of soft, beautifully white, and just a little tangy. It's the perfect base for a simple variation on the traditional creamy cheesecake, but without the heaviness. And I hesitate to even lump this recipe into the cheesecake category because it's kind of a unique hybrid; besides the cheesy factor, it also contains fluffy beaten egg-whites that get folded into the batter, as well as a very small amount of flour.

Essentially crustless, the cake's golden edges are the result of a sugar-dusted pan. Ribboned with fresh mango sauce and garnished with a few perfect blackberries, this makes for a pleasing little dessert. So, is it a cheesy cake . . . or is it a cheesecake? Is it a goat-cheese cake, or a goat cheesecake? We may never know. It's just good and, in the end, that's all we need to know.


As for the recipes . . .

I adapted this cake recipe from Emily Luchetti's book, Classic Stars Desserts, and the mango sauce recipe from Nick Malgieri's book, Perfect Pastry.

What did I change? Well, I tweaked the basic flavor of the cake by prohibiting all lemoniness; the original recipe includes both zest and juice, neither of which I was in the mood for. Also, I decreased the amount of sugar in the cake slightly and compensated for that by adding in one heaping tablespoon of clover honey, just because I love the warm taste that even a small amount of honey can lend. I increased the amount of vanilla by 50 percent, because honey and vanilla love each other. (Seriously, they do.)

As for the mango sauce, Malgieri's recipe called for a tiny bit of white rum, which I didn't include. Had I had some of that on hand, however, I probably would have used it. And, as is my habit, I reworded the instructions considerably for both recipes.

You don't need much time to slap this together, all in all, but I do recommend you chill the cake for a while before serving it. Beware that once it's completely cold it'll look a bit shrunken, like in the picture just below, but don't let that scare you. All is well.

I think the mango sauce tastes best well chilled, too. And the blackberries, of course, aren't what I'd call mandatory, but they do dovetail nicely with the other flavors and, heck, they're just so darned cute. Splurge on a small-package of nice ones, yes?


Goat-cheese Cake with Mango Sauce and Blackberries

(For a printable version of these recipes, click here!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter, or spray with baking spray, a 9" springform pan or a 9" layer-cake pan. Dust the inside of the pan well with granulated sugar and tap out the excess.

11 oz. of fresh goat cheese, room temperature (the Vermont Creamery cheese I used came in a 10.5 oz. package; got that at Trader Joe's)
3/4 granulated sugar, minus 1 Tbsp.
1 heaping Tbsp. honey (I just used Trader Joe's clover honey)
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
6 large eggs, separated (best if the eggs are not too cold, but closer to room temp)
3 Tbsp. All-Purpose flour (I used unbleached)

1 cup or so of fresh, whole blackberries

In the bowl of a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, place the cheese, sugar, vanilla, and honey. Beat until smooth.

Mix in just the egg yolks, two at a time, on your mixer's lowest setting. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.


Add the flour and mix until it's incorporated.


In another clean, dry mixer bowl (or you can easily do this using a hand mixer, in any clean, dry, medium-size bowl) beat the egg whites using the whip attachment, and whip on medium speed to form soft peaks.


With a spatula, gently fold the whipped egg whites into the goat cheese mixture, being cautious not to deflate the whites.


Without delay, carefully spread the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean, perhaps 25 minutes. Let the cake cool, in its pan, to room temperature on a rack.

Once it's come to room temperature, put it in the fridge to chill further.

After it's cold and you're ready to serve it, remove the side of the springform pan and carefully invert the cake onto a plate to remove the bottom of the pan, if you want to do so. Then flip the cake so it's right-side up. The cake should be pretty solid at this point, so it's not hard to handle. If you made the cake in a regular cake pan, you might need to run a knife around the sides to loosen it, and invert and flip it as above. It should come out of the pan without much trouble.


Fresh Mango Sauce

1/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup water
2 large fully-ripe mangoes, peeled and cut into pieces
2 to 4 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice

In a small saucepan, dissolve the sugar and water over low heat. Raise the heat to medium and bring the sugar syrup to a boil. Immediately remove it from the heat and set it aside to cool.

In the bowl of a food processor, puree the mango pieces until they're completely smooth (like the velvety texture of baby food).


With the processor running, add in the sugar syrup in a thin stream and mix for a few more seconds until well combined.

With a fine mesh sieve placed over an empty bowl, pour the mango mixture into the sieve to strain it. It may take a while to drip through even if you're helping it along, so be patient.

Once strained, stir in 2 Tbsp. of the lemon juice to start with, adding more until the taste is to your liking.

With a spoon, drizzle the sauce atop slices of the goat-cheese cake, and serve with a few blackberries. Store any leftover cake and sauce in the fridge.


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Berry Shortcake has Arrived . . . Is it Summer Yet?

Memorial Day weekend always calls for shortcake, with berries of one's choice.

And I'm not talking about those rubbery little yellow cakes, shaped like miniature swimming pools, that you can buy in a cellophane package at the grocery store. No ma'am. Those atrocities always seem to surface this time of year, conveniently stationed near the strawberries in the produce department. They're a pathetic and feeble excuse for a true shortcake. When you see them in the store just keep walking--don't look back. Didn't you have to eat enough of those as a kid? I know I did. (What do you suppose our mothers were thinking? Maybe the Apollo astronauts ate them in space?? I don't know . . . there had to be a reason. I know my mom could bake . . . maybe she was too tired to bake shortcake? Is that possible? Guess we'll never know.) Anyway, I digress, yet again. Forgive me.

I've tried quite a few shortcake recipes over the years, some quite good, some mediocre. This one is perfect if you're craving a shortcake that's not too biscuity, not at all sponge-cakey, but rather delicately sweet with a tender crumb. This is the golden ticket.

It hails from a book called In the Sweet Kitchen, by Regan Daley. I made these shortcakes today and served them with sliced ripe strawberries and big, juicy blackberries. The fruit had been tossed around, an hour or two earlier, with perhaps three spoonfuls of sugar. Topped it off with a generous, soft dollop of Chantilly cream (just a pretty name for whipped cream sweetened with sugar and vanilla).

The process for making these is almost identical to the process for making scones, and it's all easily done by hand. I doubled the recipe in the version you see below, and omitted the author's particular instructions for the fruit, as I think you should use any fresh fruit you like and prepare it as you prefer. I simplified and shortened her compilation instructions too, without deleting any critical steps or meaningful info.


Rich Old-Fashioned Strawberry Shortcakes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet (or two smaller sheets) with parchment.

4 cups AP flour (I used bleached)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. baking powder (yep, that does say two tablespoons)
1 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into small chunks
2 eggs, large, lightly beaten
1/2 cup whole milk
10 Tbsp. heavy cream

About 1 (or more) additional Tbsp. heavy cream, and 1 additional Tbsp. sugar, for brushing and sprinkling on the shortcakes before baking.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients with a whisk.



Cut in the butter with a pastry blender (or use the two-knife method) until the pieces look no larger than, say, cranberries.

In a smaller bowl, lightly beat the eggs, then mix in the milk and the cream.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients all at once and combine until the moisture seems more or less evenly distributed. (You can mix it with your hands if you prefer; it'll be real messy but it's kind of fun. Like making paper mache with your kids when they were little.)

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface (a chilled marble board works great).

Using your hands, gently press the dough into a big rectangle, perhaps 14 by 7 inches, with a thickness of about 3/4 inch.

Using the cutter of your choice (round, square, any fairly basic shape that's not too small) dipped in flour, cut the dough into as many pieces as it will yield. Scraps can be gathered together, pressed out again with your hands, and cut with the cutter.

Place the pieces on the parchment on your cookie sheet(s). Brush the tops lightly with heavy cream and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Bake them on your oven's upper rack for approximately 12 minutes; check them and, if needed, put them back in for a minute or two more until golden and not too soft. Don't overbake if you can help it.

Cool the shortcakes on a wire rack. Serve them warm or cold, with your favorite fruit, cut up and sweetened.

Yummy with whipped cream on top, plain or sweetened.

Delicious any way you decide to try it!




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