SMS: Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler Pie

This week’s Sweet Melissa Sundays selection is Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler Pie. Every week I tell myself that I’m going to write my post on Sunday morning; then pretty much every single week I find myself procrastinating writing it at 10:00 PM, just under the wire. Today is super-busy, though, so I must do it now while I have window of time. In addition to our usual Sunday long run,* Josh and I attended a brunch in the East Bay and we celebrating our third anniversary (of dating) at our favorite restaurant tonight. Yesterday was a quiet, relaxing Saturday – a great day to spend some time in the kitchen and make a pie. It was also an absolutely glorious spring day (and today looks like it will be one, too), so it felt appropriate to be making a recipe filled with lovely seasonal produce. I don’t think I was alone in my excitement over nice strawberries being in season: when I tried to buy them at the Farmer’s Market on Thursday, only empty boxes remained (I went kind of late). Fortunately, Whole Foods was flush with them.

Since fruit pies don’t keep very well, I made a half recipe and baked two mini-pies. I was worried about the cobbler biscuits burning since they were quite small, so I added them after the pies had been in the oven for about fifteen minutes. I used Melissa’s all-butter pie dough, which, now having made twice, I think is an excellent recipe: it comes together (I use a hand pastry blender) and rolls very well, not to mention it is buttery and delicious. I had never made anything with rhubarb before I received some in my CSA box last year, and though it’s not an ingredient I will necessarily gravitate towards, I have enjoyed both times I’ve baked with it. Which is good, because I bought too much for the pie and need ti us it up. The one problem I had with this recipe is the liquid from the pie oozed all over the place! Check out how nice and neat it is before:



And after:



Oh, well, it was still some darn good pie. Melissa suggests pairing the pie with her Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream for “pure heaven.” Oh, Melissa – if you insist. The ice cream was selected by Karen last July and I have made it a number of times since then, so obviously it doesn’t take much coaxing to get me to make it, especially when there’s the promise of pure heaven!

This recipe rated a 9 for Deliciousness and a 4 for Effort, for an EDR of 2.25. Many thanks to our hostess, my blogging buddy Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures. In addition to her being a super-nice person and excellent baker (I’m lucky enough to have sampled her baked goods through Secret Baker), one of the things I really enjoy about Tracey’s blog is you can tell she learns a lot in the kitchen and is great at breaking down recipes and conveying the information to her readers. She even got me over my fear of making croissants. You can find the recipe here on Tracey's site and visit the SMS blogroll for more pie.



*I mentioned a while ago that I was going to start training for a marathon, and I’m doing it! Barring any injuries, I will be running the Seattle Rock 'N' Roll Marathon on June 26th. This means that a chunk of time each Sunday is devoted to a long run. Luckily today is a “short” long run and I only have to do eleven miles (as opposed to fifteen last Sunday and seventeen next Sunday), so I won’t be too exhausted for our dinner.

TWD: Berry Surprise Cake

A couple weeks ago when we baked the French Pear Tart for Tuesdays With Dorie, I lamented the fact that we weren’t baking the Perfect Party Cake, as it was my birthday that week. This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie choice, Berry Surprise Cake, would have done nicely too, so I consider this a late birthday treat for myself. I didn’t care that berries are out of season or that this cake has a ton of rich cream; I was excited to bake a cake since there hasn’t been a single cake (except cheesecake, which I skipped) chosen since I joined TWD in November and I love white/yellow cakes.



I read the P&Q on the TWD site and was well aware that a lot of bakers were getting sunken cakes. I followed the instructions in the book and tips from others very carefully, and ended up with a pretty short cake. I actually bought a new cake pan for this recipe, since I did not have an 8x3” cake pan. However, my cake came nowhere near three inches; I may have well just used the pan I had. I ended up making a second cake the next morning – again short – and put the two of them together for the finished product.





I used Neufchâtel rather than cream cheese for the filling, and also added some extra sugar and a bit of meyer lemon juice. Raspberries were rather expensive (and from Mexico) at Whole Foods, but I bought them anyway since the cake sounded delightful as described in the book. I do wish I had bought some blueberries, as it would have made a festive Inauguration Day photo.



And now for the Monster Cuisine section of this blog. Since I can’t resist writing about my adorable dog Eloise (aka “Ms. Ears”or, when in one of her hyperactive moods, “Monster”), I have decided to introduce this new feature. It’s tenuously related, as she loves food and is increasingly spending more time in the kitchen with me. We had identified her favorite foods as chicken and bread (especially baguettes), but after this baking experience, I would add cream to the list. She even managed to sneak some of Mr. Penpen’s cake last night when we irresponsibly had our backs turned for an entire minute. Luckily he was almost done, not to mention it was his second piece of the day.



I gave this recipe a 9 for D and a 4 for E, giving it an EDR of 2.25. Thank you to Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen for choosing a laborious but very delicious recipe. You can find the recipe for Berry Surprise Cake on Mary Ann’s site, and you can see all the other bakers’ “surprises” via the TWD blogroll.