TWD:Mixed Berry Cobbler

Beth of Our Sweet Life choose Mixed Berry Cobbler for this weeks TWD recipe.  Being a good Southern girl, I adore a good cobbler.  Peach is naturally my favorite but I can't deny that I will inhale a tasty berry cobbler as well.  Its been a while since I have eaten cobbler too.  What?!  Yes, its true.  I am sadly behind in my cobbler consumption.  So when this recipe was announced,  I was very happy to say the least.

However, in the P&Q post at Tuesdays with Dorie, many remarked that the crust was quite bland.  After taking a look at the recipe in my copy of Baking, I couldn't help but agree.  There wasn't a lot of sugar.  No vanilla or cinnamon either.  The crust/biscuit topping is very important to a good cobbler.  Depending on the cobbler, its my favorite part.  A bland topper is going to ruin the whole thing for me.  So taking the comments and suggestions into account, I added more sugar and a touch of cinnamon to the dough.

I went with a frozen mixed berry mix instead of frozen. Dorie recommends it in the book and fresh berries are to expensive for me to justify buying just for me. And frozen taste just as good in cobbler as fresh anyway.

I ended up with a little too much dough for the topping but I just put it all on top of the berries in my little ramekin. I wasn't going to complain about a little extra biscuit topping! Not me!

Now...it should be illegal to eat cobbler without a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Its not but it should be! I didn't have any ice cream in the freezer but I did have the ingredients and the ice cream maker to make a batch. Plus it was an excuse to use my delicious smelling Organic Tahitian Vanilla beans!

yummm! This was just about the best vanilla ice cream I have ever had. I'm sure it was the vanilla beans that made it so tasty. I don't think I could ever make it without them again. The taste and quality of the ice cream is just too good.

The ice cream on top of the cobbler was sooo tasty! I enjoyed the cobbler by itself though the biscuit even with the additions I made, wasn't as good as I was expecting. I prefer my cobbler crust to be thinner and crispier anyway. The berries were delicious. But the combination of the biscuit, berries, and vanilla ice cream was spectacular.

Now, my slight disappointment with my biscuit wasn't going to stop me from eating my serving of the cobbler. After all...I couldn't waste that delicious vanilla ice cream and berries, could I?

As you can see below, Charlie was very impressed by the cobbler. He spent about 5 minutes making sure that the bowl and spoon was completely licked clean.

For this weeks recipe, please visit Beth at Our Sweet Life. Check out the other bakers at Tuesdays with Dorie for more of Mixed Berry Cobbler. Next week will be making Apple Cheddar Scones, picked by Karina of The Floured Apron.

As you can tell from the abundance of pictures, I got a new camera!  Its a Nikon S550 and I love it!  There are so many cool features!  I just want to sit and play with it until I learn them all. ;)  

Vanilla Ice Cream
(Adapted From Ice Cream! by Pippa Cuthbert ad Lindsay Cameron Wilson, 2005)

Makes about 3 1/4 cups

1 1/4 cups milk (I used non fat)
1 vanilla bean
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup of vanilla sugar
1 1/4 cups heavy cream

Split the vanilla bean in half length wise (don't scrape the seeds yet) and heat in the milk until almost boiling. Remove the saucepan from heat and infuse the vanilla for 15 minutes.

In a heat proof bow, beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. Remove the vanilla bean from the milk, scrape out the seeds and add them to the milk. Gradually beat the milk into the egg mixture.

Over a saucepan of simmering water, stir the egg mixture until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Remove the bowl from the heat and cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Allow the custard to cool completely.

Once the mixture is cool, stir in the cream and churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serve immediately or transfer to a freezer container and put in the freezer.