Peach Cobbler and Ice Cream

It’s summer! Just in time to try out a couple of these delicious Circle C recipes. If you have the book Yosemite at Last, you can read where Andi messes up the peach canning. However, the recipe for the peach cobbler Mother makes is at the back of Stranger in the Glade. Who knows how that happened? Probably because they have peach cobbler a lot on the Circle C. After all, what’s better than making peach cobbler (or peach pie) from your very own peaches? It’s peach season, so give this recipe a try. Mrs. M made it and it’s oh, so good! (see pictures)

The recipe following is also a fun summertime recipe. It’s homemade ice cream, but a little different from how Andi’s family would have actually made it for a crowd. Instead, you can make individual serving sizes of ice cream (it doesn’t take very long and it really works). You can use it to top your serving of peach cobbler.

Mother’s Peach Cobbler

Mother brought this recipe with her when she and her family left Pennsylvania in 1849 for California. Grandfather Johnson was a successful shopkeeper in Pittsburgh, so their family was well supplied for the long wagon train from the east coast to the gold fields. Nobody traveling west had access to fresh fruit, so settlers like Mother’s family made do with syrup-preserved fruit in tin cans or jars. Others used dried fruit. Grandmother Johnson “cobbled” ingredients together by dumping sweetened fruit into a Dutch oven, dropping the biscuit mixture on top, and baking it over an open fire. However, Mother insists it tastes just as good baked in an oven.

This is one recipe where you truly throw it all together and it turns out. Mother made a big pan of peach cobbler when I . . . well . . . I bobbled canning peaches, some jars popped their bottoms, and peach halves swam all over the water-bath canner. We ate it for supper, although I was too tired to eat it.

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• 4-5 cups peaches (canned or fresh)
• 1 cup saved syrup or 1 cup sugar water (if you use fresh peaches)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water

Drain the canned peaches, saving 1 cup of the syrup. (If you use fresh peaches, you will need to make a cup of sugar water from 1 cup water and ¼ cup sugar.) Dump the fruit in the bottom of a lightly greased 8×8 cake pan (or whatever you can find). Heat the peach syrup or sugar water to boiling. Add the cornstarch and water mixture. Cook until slightly thick, about a minute. Pour over peaches in baking dish.

Sweet Biscuit Topping

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup milk

Mix all ingredients to form a sticky “drop biscuit” dough. Drop by large spoonfuls on top of the peaches. Bake about 30 minutes at 375˚. Serve warm, with warm cream or with ice cream.

Cream: Whisk a cup of heavy whipping cream with sugar and vanilla to taste. Pour over each serving of cobbler. Or serve with a scoop of ice cream (see how to make the ice cream below).

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In Andi Lassos Trouble, Andi tells Sadie about the ice cream they will make for the upcoming Circle C rodeo.

Andi jerked back from her daydreaming and remembered why she’d come up here. “We’re having a rodeo,” she squealed.

Sadie wrinkled her forehead. “A what?”

“A roundup. Cowboy contests on our ranch.”

Andi told her about the calf roping and horse racing, the bull riding and bronco busting, and all the other contests the cowboys would compete in. “And prizes and a barbeque and even ice cream.”

Sadie’s eyes opened wide. “I’ve never tasted tasted ice cream.”

“You will at the rodeo.”

“Can anybody compete?” Sadie asked.

Andi nodded. “Even the kids. Chad told me so at lunch.”

Andi’s Ice Cream for Modern Readers

• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 sandwich-sized Ziploc bag
• 1 gallon-sized Ziploc bag
• 3 cups crushed up ice cubes
• 1/2 cup rock salt (or a lot of regular salt)

1. Mix the first 3 ingredients together in the small sandwich bag. Seal tightly!
2. Put the ice and the rock salt together in the gallon bag.
3. Put the sealed sandwich bag into the gallon bag. Seal tightly!
4. Squeeze the bags until the ice cream thickens, about 10-15 minutes.
5. Remove the sandwich bag, carefully unseal it (so none of the salt-water ice mixture sneaks in), and eat!
6. Note: You can experiment with other flavors besides vanilla.