cobbler

So, this was supposed to be a peach and gooseberry cobbler, but Morrisons ran out of peaches and gooseberries (let’s be honest, it’s unlikely Morrisons stock gooseberries, but I live in hope). So my peach and gooseberry cobbler turned into an apricot and blackberry cobbler – but guess what? No blackberries. However, to my amazement, they had apricots. YES! But what goes with apricot other than peach? Plum? That old classic combination of plum and apricot. Is that a thing? Probably not, but I decided to give apricot and plum cobbler a chance.
So, after wrestling with a rather elderly but scrappy lady* for the last two packets of plums, I returned home only to realise my apricots were rock hard, so I settled for a plum and ginger cobbler – it was clearly meant to be.

*Don’t worry about the elderly scrappy lady, she could clearly look after herself and had a whiff of Stella Artois about her.

Plum & ginger cobbler

Serves 6 / Hands on time 35 mins /Total time 1 hr / V ❄

You’ll need: Deep casserole dish
For the filling

12 ripe plums, each sliced around the stone in 4 big chunks

80g light brown sugar

Juice and zest of a lemon

Juice of an orange

1 tbs self raising flour

1½ tsp ground ginger

For the topping

250g self-raising flour

100g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp ginger

60g caster sugar

90g cold unsalted butter, cubed

150g full fat Greek yogurt

4 tbs semi-skimmed milk
1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Handful flaked almonds

2 tsp soft brown sugar

Crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream to serve (optional)

Method

1. Preheat an oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400F/gas mark 6. Start by taking each individual plum and standing it upright on a chopping board. Using a sharp knife as close to the stone as possible, slice in a downwards motion on all four sides of the plum leaving you with four chunks. Discard the stone and repeat this process with the rest of the plums.
2. Tip the plums into a deep oven dish and squeeze over the juice of an orange and a lemon along with the lemon zest. Sprinkle over the soft brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and ground ginger and give it all a good mix. Put in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.
3. Meanwhile in a bowl, whisk together the Greek yogurt, milk, vanilla extract and egg yolk. Put to one side.
4. In a larger separate bowl, combine the self-raising flour, ground almonds, caster sugar, salt, ground ginger and the baking powder. Add the cubed cold butter and start rubbing it into the flour mixture using your hands until you have breadcrumbs.

5. By now your plums should be soft. Keeping the oven on, remove the plums and set aside to cool before mixing the wet ingredients with the dry (as soon as you combine the two they will start interacting with each other, you don’t want that as this could prevent a good rise later).
6. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well with a wooden spoon until you have a sticky dough. Using wet hands (this prevents the dough sticking to your hands) take small handfuls of dough, roll in-between your palms before topping the plums. Repeat this process until the plums are covered in an even layer of dough (don’t worry if the top looks a bit messy and you have a few holes, the dough will rise and expand in the oven disguising your shoddy workmanship). Sprinkle over a handful of flaked almonds and couple of teaspoons of soft brown sugar.
7. Bake in the oven for around 20-25 minutes or until the top of your cobbler is well risen and golden in colour. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes before serving. Spoon into bowls and top with crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream.

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