Cranberry Cobbler | Frankenstein

It's time for the November edition of the All Vampire Book and a Movie Challenge. I'll admit that I was a bit thrown for a loop when I heard that this month's assignment was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I'll admit that while I know the basic story of Frankenstein (I mean, who doesn't), I'd never actually read the book or seen this movie adaptation. And the whole "vampire" portion had me stumped.

Peach Riesling Buckle

This summer has absolutely flown by. It's so hard to believe that Labor Day is lingering just around the corner. Although it's not the official end of summer, it's always been a marker of sorts to signal that the long lazy days we've been relishing are coming to a close. When I was a kid, we didn't head back to school until after Labor Day, so I'm sure that plays into my mindset. Of course, by the time it rolls around these days, my kids have already been back in school for a few weeks.

School or no school, we try to enjoy one last hurrah over the long weekend. You can bet that grills are fired up; coals sizzling as fat melts down...smoke clinging to the humid air. But there is also tons of fresh produce on display, like tomatoes so ripe and flavorful that you can eat them like apples, to peaches that streak your chin and arms with sticky sweet juices, to corn so sweet it's like eating sugar from a cob. Those are some of my favorite things about the tail-end of summer.

Well, today the Sunday Supper crew is joining Gallo Family again, and we're bringing you a menu filled with Labor Day Entertaining recipes. So, of course, my mind was turning over all sorts of riffs on that produce that just screams summer in my ear. Both of the wines that we are featuring this month are sweet and light bodied. Either would compliment a Sunday Supper under the late-summer sun. The first is Sweet Red, and the second is Gallo's newest varietal, Riesling.

this Blueberry is about to Buckle from the heat

  Did I just refer to myself as a blueberry?  Case in point...I am slowly losing my mind.  I'm officially declaring Mother Nature and myself at odds.  It is completely wrong to live in Northwestern Indiana and have to deal with 100° temperatures.  WRONG!  Perhaps I wouldn't be so adverse to it if it were more sauna-like as opposed to the blanket of water I encounter when sticking one toe out the front door.  And I have small toes.  Ask anyone.  My sisters love to give me a hard time (especially youngest sis aka finger toes).  I don't know if it's just the fact that I'm getting old or what, but I've come to despise extreme temperatures in either direction.  In all fairness though, I'm 99.99% positive that if some magical person came over and installed an underground pool in my backyard, I'd totally take back the curses I've yelled out thus far.  Maybe growing up with a pool (in some form or another...grandparents, our house, neighbors, community pool) tainted my sense of heat perception before now (as in the last 10 years or so).  Or maybe it was el niño or la niña or whichever one of those two caused this.  I do hate to be a negative nelly, so I'll stop complaining now...but that wish for a pool-fairy stands.

Something that we get tons of from such wet heat, though...berries!  I'll stand up and clap for that.  I used a big ol' crop of them to make this coffee cake-style "buckle" a few weeks ago.  When we had some actual awesome days in the 70°'s.  Low 70°'s. {sigh}

Traditionally, a buckle is a rich cake batter that has fruit scattered over it and a streusel topping.  While it is baking, the cake batter rises up and around to encase the fruit in batter, which in turn causes the streusel to buckle, creating its distinctive crinkly appearance.*

 

Blueberry Buckle

inspired by Simply Recipes

cake:
  1 c. spelt flour + more for tossing w/ blueberries (I used King Arthur Organic Whole Spelt Flour)
  1 c. all purpose flour  (I used King Arthur unbleached)  

2 tsp. baking powder
    ½ tsp. fine sea salt
    ¼ c. (½ stick/2 oz.) unsalted butter, room temp.
    ¾ c. vanilla sugar (or regular)
    1 large egg
    ¾ c. buttermilk
    1 pint (2 c.) blueberries

streusel:
    ¼ c. unsalted butter, room temp.
    ½ c. brown sugar
    ⅓ c. spelt flour (I used King Arthur Organic Whole Spelt Flour)
pinch fine sea salt
    freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease an 8" spring form pan and set aside.

Sift together the flours, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Cream the butter with sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk. Toss the berries with a Tbs. or so flour (this helps to separate the berries and hold them up in the cake) and fold in. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Set aside.

Combine ingredients for the streusel with your fingers or a fork until crumbly and pea-sized (just grate as much nutmeg as you'd like...I use ~⅓ of a whole nutmeg). Scatter evenly over batter.

Bake for ~45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack.  Gently run a thin-bladed knife around edge of pan to help release buckle and remove from pan.

*source: wiseGEEK

**King Arthur Flour sent me a coupon for one free bag of flour.  This in no way influenced any of my opinions stated in this post.

I am sharing this post with:
Ott,A's Iron Chef Challenge: King Arthur Flour