A Tale of Peach Cobbler

This is not a true account. The exact details of the story never happened. Nevertheless, it remains an accurate representation of some most of my baking adventures.

Peach Cobbler

8 peaches (peeled, cored and sliced)

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

¼ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup milk

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

—

8 peaches (peeled, cored and sliced)

You are not going to peel, core and slice your peaches because it’s February, forty degrees and sleeting outside. No self-respecting peach has survived this long outside of a can or a freezer. You are going to dump two bags of frozen peaches into a bowl.

Take a moment to roll your eyes at the silly recipe writer who thinks you would want hot peach cobbler in the late summer months when it’s possible to find ripe, whole peaches. When sweat is trickling down your back and none of the fans in your house seem to move the air at all, do you really want hot peach cobbler? …Steaming hot peach cobbler with golden slivers of peach peeking out from under a buttery crisp topping…

And then you realize that yes, you would indeed eat peach cobbler even in August heat. Repent of your hypocrisy and move on.

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

¼ t salt

Those things need to be put in a 9 x 13 pan. If you’ve run out of room under your stove for pan storage and have taken to storing your pans in your bedroom, you must first perform the complicated stealth maneuver of getting into the bedroom, silently extracting the 9 x 13 from the stack of pans and escaping the room without waking up your napping two-year old. If she does wake up, be prepared to lose all or most of your batter and peaches to her vigorous attempts to help bake.

Add the peach mixture to the pan and begin to work on the batter.

1 cup all-purpose flour.

You have a gluten sensitivity, so you reach for your favorite 1 to 1 gluten free flour blend…and it’s not there. You used it up last Tuesday when you just HAD to have chocolate chip cookies at 11 PM. Time to rummage in the bottom of your pantry. You have three choices: the flour mix that makes everything taste of beans, a package of premade Ancient Grains gluten free muffin mix, and some old gluten free bread that basically crumbles back into flour when you look at it wrong. You choose the muffin mix. Problem solved. Hopefully nobody will notice the taste of Ancient Grains.

On we go.

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

6 tablespoons butter

The flour you’re using is a premade muffin mix, which means it already has baking powder in it. You remember this about two seconds after you’ve stirred in the baking powder.

But there’s no time to fret because you are no longer alone. Naptime is over and here’s the toddler, adorable, chubby cheeked, and excited to assist in any way possible—though she’d much prefer ways that involve eating. “Help, Mommy, help!” She says and begins to pull a chair up to the counter.

No matter; you’re a veteran mother; she’ll be entertained by playing with plastic cups while you finish up the cobbler. Set out the milk and then get out the cups she likes to play with—before she manages to pull the knives out. Or turn on a burner of the stove. Or dump soapy wash water all over the floor.

Then your older kids come in, clamoring for a snack. You’d intended to have the cobbler baked and a little extra on hand for their snack time, but that sure didn’t happen, and it wouldn’t be very healthy anyway, so you fix them pickles and graham crackers. (It’s what was on hand, okay?)

And if somewhere in the background you heard a little voice announcing: “Help, Mommy, help!” you don’t really pay attention to it because the other two are already talking overtop each other. You’re smiling at the funny story one is telling and frowning at the other for whining and there’s not any more of you left to give attention to that little voice.

So just about the time that you get them settled with their snack, the gallon of milk hits the floor.

“Malk, Mommy! Malk!” Says the little voice, hysterical now. And there stands the two-year old on the chair she’s pulled up to the counter, weeping, and covered in milk. Everything else is also covered in milk.

[We will pause to let you mop up an entire gallon of milk off your counters, floors, walls and children.]

To resume. No more Ms. Flit Happily About the Kitchen for you. Oh no, it’s all business now.

¾ cup milk has become ¾ a cup almond milk mixed with half n half because there wasn’t a full ¾ a cup of almond milk in the fridge. Throw it all together in a bowl, whip it up—finally remember to turn on the oven to 350 only sixty seconds before you’re going to use it—dump the batter on top of the peaches and stuff it in the oven. Sixty seconds of preheat time is good enough!

Plop down on the floor with the two-year old to share the leftover batter in the bowl and on the spoon —and realize you forgot to add the butter.

Leap up from the floor like you’re a gazelle running from a lion on the African plain. Take the butter out of the fridge, chop up six tablespoons into tiny cubes, haul the cobbler back out (now aren’t you glad you always forget to preheat? It’s barely warm.) scatter the bits of butter over the surface and shove the thing back in the oven.

Now sit on the floor and lick your spoon as the toddler removes every molecule of batter from the bowl. You might reflect on how (if you were British) you’d probably get sent home from the Great British Baking Show by the end of the first day, never mind the first week.

But you know what? The hot, fruity, cinnamon smell of baking peaches fills up the house. You have friends over for supper. Your husband brings home some vanilla ice cream and you all jam yourselves into your tiny kitchen. You eat, you talk about your lives, you laugh together over silly things. And that cobbler turns out pretty good after all.

#parenting #baking #children #mess #cooking #family