Dunk & Crumble

Archives for July 2012

Jumbleberry Pie

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Serious question.  Why would anyone use the name “mixed berry” when “jumbleberry” is available?

Mixed berry is an ambiguous yogurt flavor.  Possibly a suspiciously giant scone option at Starbucks.  So.  There’s that.

But jumbleberry!  Jumbleberry bumbleberry humbleberry pie.  Get on this train right now.

Is there anything not fun about jumbleberry?  Saying it?  Fun.  Making it?  Also fun.  Eating it?  SO MUCH FUN.  It’s sweet and slightly tart and full of bursting little berries, rubies of every size, staining plates, forks, and lips with deep purple juice.  A summer-scented pie bringing berry-stained smiles.

So go gather your ingredients, and jumble one together.  A jumbleberry rumbleberry humbleberry pie (I could keep this up for awhile.  …Crumbleberry.  See?  Definitely.  So you’d do well to get going).  Top with ice cream.  Eat with friends.  Yumbleberry.  Yup.

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Curried Cauliflower Soup

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Yes yes I know, you’re all hot and sweaty and unable to eat anything but watermelon and gazpacho and so, SO HOT.

Well, I’m not.  Here in San Francisco, the place where summer goes to die, apparently, it’s not hot.  It’s not even warm.  It’s cold.  Boot-stomping, fleece-wearing cold.  The fog rolls in, the fog rolls out.  In, out, in, farther-in, and all the while, we’re lucky if the temperature gets into the 60s.  So while you feast on fresh, cooling melon, I’m craving soup.

If you’re in the bay area like me, you’re welcome.  If you’re, I don’t know, anywhere else in the northern hemisphere, my apologies.  Still, I suspect this soup would be nice served cold.  If you can bring yourself to turn on a burner and throw together a chilled version, please let me know.

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Rustic Peach Cake

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It seems I can’t help myself.  As long as there is fresh summer fruit to be had, I’m going to go ahead and bake with it.  It’s just so gorgeous, you know?  So full of juice and sweetness!  You understand?  Gorgeous, tender, juicy little things.

…Did that sound dirty to you?

Get your head out of the gutter.  Jeez.

Instead of putting apricots in a galette or raspberries in a brownie, this time I decided to put some rustic into a peach cake.  On account of the recipe I saw in an old Cook’s Illustrated Magazine.  You guys read that rag?  Extremely thorough and excruciatingly meticulous.  A baker’s dream of a publication.  And they have peach cake!

This one uses lots of fresh peaches (obviously), and also gets some help from a bit of finely chopped dried fruit, which absorbs some fresh peach juice (leaving the dried fruit wonderfully plump and tender) and helps to keep the cake from getting all sogged up.  Very clever.  Good on you, Cook’s Illustrated.

I used dried apricots because they were easier to find than dried peaches, but, as the saying goes, I think a stone fruit is a stone fruit is a stone fruit.  Probably.

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