The Picnic Game from Louise

Louise at the blog Months of Edible Celebrations is hosting a picnic!! She just announced this game today, inviting bloggers to celebrate by bringing a full alphabet of picnic treats. Louise assigned me the letter A: I'm "baking" for the picnic even though my reality right now is a condo in Aspen, Colorado, where I have no pantry supplies whatsoever. I'm looking forward to getting home in a few weeks, and baking in my own kitchen where I keep flour, baking powder, and where I have many baking dishes!

Well, I'm going on this virtual fantasy picnic, and I'm bringing:

A -- APRICOT COBBLER

Other bloggers will be bringing foods from B to Z.

Here is a photo and recipe:

Apricot (or Peach) Cobbler
Preheat oven to 400 F.

Make the filling first:
1 1/2 lb ripe apricots or 9 to 10 ripe peaches
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (2 for peaches)
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon or lime juice
3/4 teaspoon almond extract

Cut apricots in quarters. (Or peel the peaches and cut in 6-8 slices each). Toss all the ingredients together in a 9-inch round or square glass or ceramic baking dish. Let stand until juicy, about 30 minutes or as long as it takes to make the topping.

For topping:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar mixed in
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk OR 1/2 c. milk plus a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar
2 or more teaspoons of cinnamon-sugar for sprinkling.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar in a bowl. Blend in the butter with your fingertips or a knife until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in the buttermilk with a fork just until combined. Do not overmix.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough on top of the filling; leave spaces in between the blobs to allow topping to expand. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons cinnamon-sugar.

Bake cobbler in 400 degree oven until fruit is tender and topping is golden, about 30 minutes. Cool slightly, about 15 minutes, and serve warm with ice cream.

APRICOT CAKE

While I'm thinking about apricots and what I could do with them -- another good picnic dish with apricots would be a traditional Polish fruit cake. Similar recipes appear in many traditional Eastern European cuisines -- I always knew it as a Jewish tradition before friends gave me a Polish cookbook a couple of years ago.

I include a scan of the cake recipe, with my notes on how to make the depicted cake:


Click on this copy of the cake recipe with my notes to see a full-sized version.