You may have noticed that I have taken a bit of a sabbatical from my blog. I guess that the crushing pressure of putting words to the page (so to speak) once or twice a month finally got to me. Either that, or I just no longer wanted to contribute to the cesspool that is cyberspace in 2009. Either that, or I'm a sloth. Whatever the reason, I think I am ready to start putting myself out there online again. Hopefully what I have to say will drop more into Helpful rather than Garbage. Most of my entries forthwith (my Ed Norton word of the day, its a good one) will describe food items/equipment/cookbooks/websites that I find helpful to me in my work. I will mostly stay away from bashing - too much negativity in the world already. Still, once in a while I'm sure I am gonna feel the need to flame away. As long as I can do it with some restraint and class, I don't think that should be a problem.

For my first entry post-sabbatical, I thought I would post a recipe for a dessert I just made. I don't create desserts too often; I'm creative with sugar, but not proficient. I like this one quite a bit. I call it a pie, but it's really a thick-crusted cobbler. Cobblers are really just top-crusted fruit pies anyway. I adapted the Sour Cream Cobbler Biscuit Dough from The Joy of Cooking and put all mishmash of stuff I like into the filling. Summer has not yet arrived, so I used frozen peaches here. Once July hits, however, I know I will make this again with the fresh stuff. Try to make the effort to hunt down the rose water to use in this dish - you'll be glad you did. You can find rose water at Amazon or at ChefShop.

Don't just sit there, get into the kitchen "forthwith" and make yourself some Scooter Pie.


                                                                       

                     SCOOTER PIE

Ingredients

5 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1 3/4 lbs. frozen peach slices (about 3 - 3 1/2 cups), thawed (reserve juices)
2/3 cup candied ginger diced into 1/4" (about 1/3 lb.)
1 1/2 tsp. rose water

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. fine-grain salt, such as table salt
1 tbsp. cornmeal
6 1/2 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
10 tbsp. sour cream
5 tbsp. heavy cream

All-purpose flour for rolling out the dough

2 tbsp. heavy cream
1 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom

Baking pan: one 2-quart 11"x7"x1 1/2" casserole or cobbler pan, or something closely equivalent in size

• Whisk together the 5 tbsp. sugar with the cornstarch and 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom in a large bowl. Toss with peach slices and candied ginger. Toss again with reserved peach juices and rose water. Set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour, 3 tbsp. sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cornmeal in the workbowl of a food processor. Process for 30 seconds to combine. Add the cold butter. Pulse the butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles sand, approximately 20 one-second pulses. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and the heavy cream. Using a rubber spatula, gently mix the sour cream mixture into butter-flour mixture. Don't overwork the dough. Knead the dough just a few times in the bowl. Generously flour a work area, such as a counter, to roll out the dough. Flour your hands and the rolling pin also. Transfer the dough to the work area and shape into a rectangle (or whatever shape your pan is). Dust a little flour on top of the dough. Roll out the dough to a 13"x9" size, or roll it out to a size that is 1" bigger on each side of the pan that you will be using. This is a fairly wet dough, so the hard part will be transferring it to the pan. First, take a long flat knife, or a long thin metal spatula, and separate the dough from the work surface. Next, transfer the peach mixture to the pan. (No need to butter the bottom) There's a couple of ways you can transfer the dough: you can lift it using 2 or 3 long knives or spatulas, or you can roll it up on to the rolling pin and then unroll it on to the top of the pan. Fit the dough into the pan on top of the peaches. The dough will be thick and you may have to bunch it up in spots along the edges. If there are any holes in the dough, tear some dough from another spot and patch the hole.
• Brush the heavy cream all over the top of the dough. Mix together the 1 tbsp. sugar and 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom and sprinkle it over the top of the cream. Bake the pie on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, rotating the pie from front to back after 25 minutes. The crust should be golden and cooked through. Let rest for 20-30 minutes before serving. Serve warm. Garnish with whipped cream flavored with a splash of rose water.

Serves 6-8.