I’m sure I’ve posted this recipe before, but it’s my favorite thing to do with summer fruit, and it’s incredibly easy, so I’m posting the recipe again, this time with a picture (before I topped and baked it, because honestly it’s prettier then).

This is two peaches, one nectarine, one pluot, one plum, and about a dozen cherries (ie, the fruit that wasn’t going to last another day before spoiling). The topping is a half cup each oats, wheat germ, flour, brown sugar, and melted butter, plus a dash of cinnamon. Bake at 350 for half an hour or so, until the fruit juices are bubbling around the edges. Eat with vanilla ice cream.

I haven’t posted an actual recipe in a while, and this is a delicious one. It’s based on one I tore out of a Martha Stewart Living a few years ago, and it doesn’t seem to be on her website any more so I’m doing you all an enormous favor by posting a simplified version of the recipe here. My main edit is to change the ridiculous first ingredient, which she list as “1 5/8 cups (13 tablespoons) butter” — as if either of those measurements are at all simple to calculate. Further, you actually only need one stick of butter in the dough; the remaining tablespoons of butter are added at various points — to grease the bowl, to brush the dough before its rise, to brush on the loaves before their rise. And you can take or leave those. In fact, you could just grease the bowl with the butter wrapper and be done with it. Next time I make this, I’m going to leave the egg yolks out of the filling (mostly because it’s annoying to have 2 leftover egg whites), and I’ll report back on how that works.

For the dough:
½ c warm water
2 T active dry yeast (2 envelopes)
1 t sugar

½ c butter, melted and cooled (plus some more to grease the bowl)
2/3 c sugar
1 c orange juice
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lime
zest of 1 orange
1 t salt
5-6 c flour

For the filling:
1 pound cream cheese (room temperature)
1 c confectioner’s sugar
2 egg yolks
2 t vanilla
1 c dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried currants (or a mix)
2/3 c poppy seeds

For the egg wash:
1 lightly beaten egg

Stir together the water, yeast and 1 t sugar in a large bowl until yeast dissolves. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Now whisk in oj, eggs, remaining 2/3 c sugar, melted butter, zests and salt. Stir in flour, 1 cup at a time, until dough pulls away from sides of bowl and forms a ball.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until just slightly sticky, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a buttered bowl and turn so that the dough is lightly coated with butter. Loosely cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, either at room temperature (about 1 ½ hours) or in the refrigerator overnight.

Meanwhile, stir together cream cheese, egg yolks, confectioners’ sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add poppy seeds and dried berries. Set aside (at room temp or in the fridge, wherever your dough is).

When you’re ready to shape and bake the coffee cakes, butter 2 baking sheets and set aside.

Punch down dough and divide in half. Roll out one half into an 11 x 15” rectangle. Spread half the filling evenly over the dough, leaving a 1” border. Beginning at one long side, tightly roll dough into a log, encasing the filling. Pinch seam to seal. Carefully transfer log to baking sheet. With a sharp knife, make cuts about 2” apart along one long side of the log, cutting just three-quarters of the way across. Lift the first segment, turn it cut side up, and lay it flat on the baking sheet. Repeat with the next segment, twisting it so it sits on the opposite side of the roll. Continue down the log, alternating sides.

Roll out, fill and cut remaining dough.

Preheat oven to 350. Loosely cover dough and let rise until almost doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes. Brush dough with egg wash, avoiding the filling. Bake until cooked through and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Carefully slide coffee cakes onto wire racks, and let cool completely before slicing.

I’m not sure these text-free recipe diagrams would work for me; after all, after however many years, I still don’t understand what those little laundry labels in my clothes mean. I am definitely a word person, not an image person. But the pictures are appealing; I could imagine a poster decorating my kitchen wall…
Meanwhile, the designer is apparently still working out some of the bugs in this system: “The ingredients are still a work in progress,” she said in the New York Times; “For example, it’s hard to explain the difference between flour, baking powder, anthrax and cocaine without words.”
OK! Let me know when you work that out…

This is a repost from my old blog; now I have a pretty picture to show you what pandowdy looks like!

I was doing more than the usual baking toward the end of my pregnancy with Eli. It was a good antidote to the uncertainty of our renovation, and it was certainly making my friends and family happy. Even my doula, who wanted me to go on a no-wheat, no yeast, no sugar diet because I’d cultured positive for group-b strep, acknowledged that it would probably be less stressful for me to be hooked up to IV antibiotics during my labor (to prevent transmitting the bacteria to my baby), than change my diet and end my baking tear. The day we discussed this, as I recall, I’d baked both bread and a strawberry-rhubarb pie. (In the event, my water didn’t break until the minute Eli’s head popped out, rendering the antibiotic issue happily moot). Ben, always an excellent kitchen assistant, would wake up those days, during that sweet season of baking, asking, “What kind of pandowdy will we make today, Mama?”

Ah, pandowdy. A classic American dessert which is essentially pie for slobs. It has all the just-dump-the-fruit-in-the-pan appeal of a crisp or cobbler, but with the slightly fancy touch of a pie crust on top. Except you don’t have to prebake the crust, or roll it out very carefully, or even crimp the edges. In fact, part way through baking you slice it up and push the crust down under the fruit a bit so that the juice runs over the top and carmelizes the crust. Yum. It looks a mess (hence the name: pandowdy = dowdy in the pan), but tastes fabulous. Here’s an adaptation from Joy of Cooking and Deborah Madison’s lovely Local Flavors.

For the crust
1 c plus 2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 c butter, in chunks
1/2 tsp vanilla
2-3 tbsp ice water

Using a food processor, blend the flour, sugar, and salt together, then work in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Add the vanilla and sprinkle in just enough water for the dough to clump together with a few pulses of the food processor. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill while you prepare the fruit.

Preheat the oven to 400. Lightly butter a 2-quart baking dish.

For the filling
7-8 c fruit, chopped into large bite-sized chunks (I used rhubarb and strawberries, but you could use apple and rhubarb, apple, blueberries, peaches and blueberries, whatever you’ve got and sounds good)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c maple syrup or brown sugar

Toss the fruit with the other ingredients and spread in the baking dish.

Roll out the chilled dough to about 1/8 inch thick and about an inch wider than your dish (but don’t sweat it if the dough is a slightly different shape than your dish, leaving some gaps where the fruit is uncovered; this is pie for slobs, remember?). Lay the dough over the fruit, tucking the edges into the fruit.

Bake until the crust is light gold, 30-35 minutes. Remove the pandowdy from the oven and lower the heat to 350. Slice across the crust diagonally into 2-inch squares. Use a spatula to press the crust down into the fruit and tilt the pan to let the juices flow over the crust (don’t worry if there’s not much juice yet, and of course don’t worry about breaking or crushing the crust – that’s the point).

Return the dish to the oven and continue to bake until the crust is really golden and glazed and the fruit is tender when pierced, about 20-30 minutes more. If you remember, baste the crust with the fruit juices once or twice during this second baking. Serve warm , with vanilla ice cream.