I have to admit something: I have never purchased, cut, or baked a peach. I have eaten peach pie and I am pretty sure I’ve had those peaches in syrup that sometimes get served with school lunches. But that is it. End of line. So when I saw peaches were in my weekly Farmhouse Delivery CSA box, I started to dig around for ideas. This cobbler was the one that was the most intriguing. Next week I’ll be sharing some chutney I made using white peaches.
This recipe is pretty straight forward. I followed it exactly, other than subbing NuNaturals 1:1 stevia for the sugar. Here are the IKEA assembly pictures:
Basically, you mix the sugar in with the peaches, add the crumble, and bake. The hardest part is waiting for it to cool for 20 minutes so it can thicken.
We ate ours with vanilla ice cream and Busy Bee granola on top. 10/10 would make again!
That reference may be dated, but I love John Ritter.
I LOVE baking, but some weeks are busy and other times I want to see what other people are doing or making. I am inspired by everything on Instagram, but I cannot eat those things… though full disclosure- when I finish my mileage for the Trail Racing Over Texas Trans-Texas Virtual Run I WILL be ordering these cookies from Levain bakery:
I took this picture from their Instagram. WUT.
Generally speaking, I am the one who knocks (shout out to Heisenberg) when I mail treats. But, I know this shocks NO ONE, I also like eating baked goods from the mail. 🙂
So, this post is dedicated to my homies at Farmhouse Delivery. I have tried a few of their baked goods over the past few months and wanted to share them with you here. There’s no baking required (except for the last one and WORTH IT). Like all other Farmhouse items (including fresh flowers, eggs, etc.), these bad boys just show up on your front porch. And you even get a text so you know to awkwardly hover near the door. Ha!
Blueberry Muffin
Farmhouse deliveries include local farmers AND local businesses. Texas French Bread has several offerings in their bakery section, including this amazing Blueberry Muffin. The thing weighed like 40 pounds.
One of the reasons I was SUPER excited for this muffin was…. Well first we should cover the fact that I put butter on all fruit filled muffins. I used to get this BALLER orange muffin from Marshall Fields restaurant and I put butter on that. And Blueberry muffins. I just do, okay.
Anyways, sometimes the cold butter rips the muffins. That’s where a BUTTER CROCK comes in. You put cold water in it and it keeps butter soft on the counter. It took its maiden voyage for this blueberry muffin moment:
Full disclosure, taking pics of this buttered muffin was similar to a dog balancing a treat on his nose (which are always labradors. Labradors are too polite sometimes, man…).
If you do not have a butter crock, my dad used to put his hot coffee cup on a pat of butter at restaurants (wrapped in foil, obvs). Perfect spreadable butter. Freakin genius.
Cinnamon Sugar Croissant
This croissant is also from Texas French Bread. It was delivered in my CSA box and I was NOT disappointed. Look at the sparkly sugary goodness! It actually looks fake. But I know it was not because I ate it. Promise (like you had doubts).
I know that Paul Hollywood is all about laminated dough when it comes to pastries like this, so I also have a shot of how this looked when cut in half:
Texas Strawberry Pies
These beautiful bebes are from Flourvine and were SO DANG DELICIOUS. They even put a little note inside asking me to slice a few holes on the top before baking. Thanks, friends. I did and it was perfect. I added some egg wash and turbinado sugar before baking because I am that guy who says “this is great! I modified it though…”
I would also like to add that those baller strawberries that were basically the size of these hand pies were also Texas strawberries from Farmhouse. They are the best, y’all. 🙂
My “To Try” List
There are still several items on Farmhouse Delivery’s baked goods/desserts section that I have yet to try. I have several weeks of baking plans on lock, but when those are finished I am going to try some of these bad boys:
I had the kit Farmhouse sold this fall, where you made the dough using ingredients in separate containers (from Dai Due). It was SO good! I don’t see that one anymore and like the idea of a square biscuit. So this will happen.
And Finally….
This is called “Late Night Fridge Grab Dessert Box” and I have ZERO chill. Pun unintended, but I am amused and it stays. This looks SOOOOO good, but I would need to buy it for a night where I am hanging out with friends so we could all try a bit of it. I cannot imagine this would end well if these were all in my fridge for just me.
I don’t have to imagine, it is written in stone. I would eat all of it at 2 a.m., then Jon would find me in the morning covered in cookie crumbs laying on the kitchen floor sleeping whilst smiling.
Even so, I will wait until I can share it.
Thanks, Farmhouse!
I love how all of these items are local. There are also baked goods from Easy Tiger, Sugar Mama’s, Rockstar Bagels, Slow Dough, and Tiny Pies! We had the Texas Pete pie from Tiny Pies, but I did not include it in this post because that was a savory pie. I didn’t want to have to check the “savory” tag, then disappoint people when there was a post full of sugar. 🙂 Anyways, the pie was vegan and delicious. I look forward to slowly checking everything off this list as groceries are conveniently delivered to my door.
There’s something special about making a treat or meal that is tied to a time of year. Peanut butter eggs taste better than peanut butter cups. Pumpkin pie is a key November staple. Peppermint ALL DAY in December, right? These times are special.
I love walking down Target’s seasonal section looking for baking ingredients or serving vessels/bags. When I was scrolling through my Instagram Grid recently I noticed that the Easter vibe was SO present. It made me wonder if other holidays were the same.
They were!
Let’s take a tour of some of the more recent holiday/seasonal times with a look at “the ‘gram,” AKA what my Instragram grid looked like at these time periods.
This is basically a guided tour of The Louvre… but food pics. You’re welcome.
Fall/Thanksgiving
This time was full of pumpkin. Somehow I did not do many Halloween treats. I realized after some investigation that this was because I was having pretty bad depression in October. When my mood stabilized in November (thanks Zoloft!), I hit Turkey Day running.
I made my first pie crust from scratch. It was wicked good, but my pie plate was a little too large so the crust was not substantial.
I am not sure why that recipe was a liar, but I took it personally… just like MJ in basically every 5 minutes of The Last Dance (Bad Boys 4 Life). To redeem myself, I doubled the recipe next time to make a Buttermilk Pie for my Bobcat BFF Jess.
Christmas Time
During Christmas I was hyper-focused on mailable treats. But I also made a Yule Log cake for me and Jon. He is not a “cake person,” but loves a Red Velvet with Cream Cheese frosting. I make holiday cakes in that flavor combo so I am not eating cake alone. This theme will pop up again for Easter.
The pic on the bottom left was the first Panettone we’d ever eaten. I turned it into french toast because of course I did. I also made round foods, pork, and rice for the new year because, as Michael Scott once said “I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little stitious.”
Valentine’s Day
This is easily my favorite baking holiday. I truly do not care about Valentine’s Day (or Sweetest Day for that matter). But I love pink and hearts and sparkles and THIS HOLIDAY HAS EVERYTHING.
I’ve always loved the classic foil heart-shaped box of chocolates, so I made several treats you could create to fill the box. I also recommend eating the chocolates as you make the new stuff because you deserve chocolates, too! The waffle on the top left was for Galentine’s Day, a Leslie Knope tradition.
Easter/Spring
This is the most recent holiday I baked and make delish foods for. I made cake popcicles for the first time (which Jon dubbed “the personal pan pizza of cakes”). This was made using the red velvet/cream cheese frosting combo so he would share with me. I was going to make carrot cake ones, but he said he didn’t like carrot cake (narrator: but he did).
I have realized while planning this post that there aren’t a lot of good food holidays coming up. Basically the next good one (in my opinion) is Halloween. So what can I celebrate until then?
Pretzel Day (yes, office fans that’s on April 26th)
Apple Pie Day (May 13th)
Donut Day (June 4th)
Ice Cream Day (June 7th)
Eat Your Vegetables Day (June 17th)
Strawberry Sundae Day (July 7th)
French Fry Day (July 13th)
Milk Chocolate Day (July 28th)
Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (August 4th)
Potato Day (August 19th… and every other day imo)
Waffle Day (August 24th)
Cheeseburger Day (September 18th)
Queso Day (September 20th)
Ice Cream Cone Day (September 22nd)
Coffee Day (September 29th)
Cinnamon Roll Day (October 4th)
Pierogi Day (October 8th)
Cake Decorating Day (October 10th)
Day of the Nacho (October 21st)
These “national holidays” were found on the internet. For all I know someone threw darts at a dartboard then made the site, but damned if I won’t celebrate NATIONAL POTATO DAY.
When I made my first pie crust from scratch, it tasted GREAT. However, it was not enough dough to make a proper crust. I wanted to make one with the pinched edges and I ended up having to make one with a fork chevron due to time. You can see a video here:
However, this time was different. LOOK AT THIS BEAUT:
I was SO pleased. Proper chuffed, perhaps. This is a buttermilk pie made for one of my favorite people. This is one of her favorite pies, so naturally I am terrified for her to try it. She came to pick it up (I provide near-contactless delivery to my ATX-area friends). However, it is a PIE. I cannot sneak a taste. A sliver missing would be pretty damned obvious.
Luckily, I made a double-batch of dough! So I made three tartlets that I filled with the same custard and some sliced pears. The organic pears and vanilla sugar were both from Farmhouse Delivery. My partner and I split that one, then I sent the other two her way. With some VERY sad looking macarons. But that’s another story for another day…
Here’s a picture of those adorbs tartlets:
I wish I had enough dough for four because I really didn’t want to share mine. Ha! You can watch a short video of the dough process here. In under two minutes that dough is whipped into shape thanks to the time lapse feature on my phone!
We knew MONTHS ago that we would not be able to travel home for the holidays. It was scary enough to travel from Montana to Texas when we relocated back to Austin this summer. Even so, it was odd to spend Thanksgiving alone (knowing Christmas and New Years will be the same). We decided to not do a traditional Thanksgiving feast, but we are both suckers for a pumpkin pie, so I made one of those from scratch!
I thought it would be fun to walk you through our meals yesterday. Warning- meal 2 was pie. 🙂
Meal 1: Charcuterie
I made a cute little menu so my partner Jon could pick out exactly what he wanted for his plate. I tried to use items we have around for other purposes (fruits, veggies, cheeses, meats) but also purchased little baguette crisps from HEB cause I wanted a cracker option and we generally do not eat crackers.
Meal 2: Pumpkin Pie!
I made Joanne Chang’s pumpkin pie. She has a REALLY great pie crust recipe. Here’s a link to her books and my YouTube video rolling out the dough.
The final product was DELIGHTFUL! I cut out the uggo slice that has to be sacrificed when taking pictures. That is not available because I ate pieces of it and the bottom of the crust did not come out because I stupidly thought a butter knife could cut the pie. Yup.
As you can see, the pies were topped differently. The top pic was my partner Jon’s. He is team Reddi Whip. The second pic is mine (yes, I coordinated my coffee cup for this picture) with fresh whipped cream. I had leftover heavy cream from the pie, so I figured it would be a fun addition. It was. And I forced a spoon of “the real stuff” on Jon’s plate after the pictures were taken. He is still team Reddi Whip. You have to admire his conviction.
Meal 3: Jonny want Wingies
The final meal of the day, followed by a brisk walk to avoid a food coma, was oven baked buffalo wings and veggies. I used this recipe, which is a staple over here. It is what we eat each Super Bowl and generally what Jon asks for as his birthday meal. We also had Topo Chicos, which are the BEST sparkling waters on the planet. We bought a pack from Costco and treat them like fine champagne, only using them for special occasions.
As you can tell, the chopped veggies from meal one made a comeback! I use Whattaburger buffalo sauce because I will eat anything they make, TBH. Especially their spicy ketchup, which might be made of angel wings and unicorn sneezes.
Thanks for reading! I am making a bread pudding with leftover items from the pie. Stay tuned for that “baller on a budget” adventure.
We all know I am clearly doing this for the five people who read the blog (note sarcasm here). Ha! Truth is, I really enjoy having a place to try new things, maybe fail at them, and not worry about the outcome. I am a VERY hard worker and spend a lot of time focused on my career as a professor. Makes sense- this is what I spent a lot of time and energy building toward.
However, baking is different. It is not how I earn a living. I am not assessed on how it goes (though if my partner says “repeat!” after trying something new I do feel pretty chuffed*).
When I began PhD and Patisserie it was because I wanted to put myself out there and share my own experiences as a new baker. Though, truth be told, I also wanted a record of this for myself. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that joy and following our journeys should be prioritized. We do not know how long we will be around to share them. So I want to sprinkle flour over everything like Rip Taylor (or a Harlem Globetrotter) holding a bucket of confetti!
Clearly, what I have to share is a middle aged woman who is learning how to bake later in life. For now, this is done at home. Eventually, it will be in pastry classes at ACC. I decided to add videos to Instagram. Specifically, I wanted to make longer ones for funzies where I attempt new recipes or skills. After making one, I realized some of my friends and family aren’t on “the gram.” Therefore, I also added them to my YouTube channel. Cause I have one now (cue the random “click and subscribe” stuff).
The videos posted today were about rolling out pie dough for my first completely from scratch pumpkin pie. Here’s a look of the crust before chilling in the fridge and waiting to be filled tomorrow:
*I stole chuffed from Great British Bake Off and I REFUSE to apologize for it. Next time I might say “proper chuffed.”
PhD & Patisserie 