Balsamic Apple Cobbler

In Jamie Oliver's Happy Days with the Naked Chef, he made fruit cobbler with a few kinds of berries, a pear, an apple and "a good glug of balsamic vinegar." What a great idea! The vinegar gave the fruit a complex sweet and sour note. I was wondering if it would work without the berries.



Other than the slightly un-appetizing brownish color, the baked apples tasted fantastic - best tasting apple filling ever. I will try this again in apple pie form.



For the topping, I used buttermilk fruit cobbler recipe from Christopher Kimball's The Cook's Bible which basically a biscuit recipe with 2 tablespoons of sugar. And like recipe in this book, this will be the best biscuit/cobbler topping you'll ever make.

Ingredients

• 8 apples - peeled, cored and cut into chunks (I used combination of Granny Smith, Greening, Golden Delicious, and Gala.)


• 2 tablespoons sugar


• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar


• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 teaspoons baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 2 tablespoons salt


• 3 tablespoons chilled butter


• 2 tablespoons shortening


• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss apples with 2 tablespoons sugar and balsamic vinegar in a 9 inch square baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.


2. In a food processor, pulse flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and salt together a few times. Cut butter and shortening into small chunks and add to the mixture. Pulse into you get coarse crumbs but not wet sticky dough.


3. Transfer into a bowl, sprinkle buttermilk over and mix with wooden spoon.


4. Gather into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap. Flatten into a disk and refrigerate.


5. Remove apples from the oven, increase the temperature to 425 degrees. Roll out the dough and place on top of the fruit. Bake for 15 minutes.


6. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Best when warm.