A spate of late-May warmer weather pushed the arrival of the season’s first local strawberries up a few weeks early; last Saturday I stopped at our favorite berry stand to grab the first strawberry flat of the year.
The ‘berry stand’ is actually a plywood-walled shed, probably 12×12, usually manned by a flock of rosy-cheeked ladies, sleeves rolled up, looking like they’ve literally walked off the farm, ready to work and slinging flats of berries around like playing cards.
There was a ‘special guest’ there on opening weekend, a bright-eyed, smiling, tiny sprite of a woman (my quasi-educated guess was she at least 75) serving tastes of a strawberry-blueberry cobbler.
The cobbler was a revelation – the strawberries here are the best we’ve ever tasted – though there was something very different about this recipe, my guess (wrongly) was molasses though it was close. Big, juicy, almost shockingly sweet strawberries with a sprinkling of tart, plump blueberries, combined with a bit of brown sugar, produced Mimi’s magic.
We chatted a bit during a lull (most of the time the parking lot looked like the proverbial frenzied anthill you used to kick as a kid); her name was Mimi and she said she’d been baking summer cobblers for the past 80 years, since she was a young girl of 7 living on her father’s farm south of town.
Working straight from memory Mimi dictated her recipe to me, insisting that I use the whole milk and ‘all that butter, honey’. A confirming cobbler was produced the a few days later, tasting every bit as good as Mimi’s did. Mimi said this works great with ‘just about any fruit you want, honey’, though strawberry – blueberry and strawberry – nectarine were her favorites.
Thanks Mimi.
2 lb. fresh strawberries, halved or quartered (about 6 cups)
3/4 lb. fresh blueberries (about 2 cups)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3 tbsp. corn starch
2 cups AP flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 and 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3/4 cup whole milk
1 scant tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 scant tbsp. granulated sugar
Oven to 425.
Berry it up. Mix the berries in a large bowl, sprinkle with the 3/4 cup brown sugar and all the cornstarch, mix well. Pour into an 11×17 baking dish and bake 10-12 minutes until the berries are hot.
Meanwhile, dough time. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; cut in the butter with your hands or a pastry cutter until it resembles a coarse meal with scattered pea sized lumps. Stir in the milk until the dough just forms.
Top it. Remove the hot berries from the oven and plop 10-12 mounds (whatever you get is fine) of dough onto the hot berries; flatten gently with the back of a spoon. Combine the remaining dark brown and granulated sugar and sprinkle over the dough. Bake until the topping is golden and crisp, another 27-32 minutes.
Best served warm with a scoop of fresh whipped cream or (homemade of course) vanilla bean ice cream. Summer is here.
Enjoy.
