Good metaphorical morning, my friends! The sun is shining, the humidity is oppressive, and the cat is sitting on your chest with the stomping power of a thousand pounds. I’ve been guilty in the past of referring to myself as a morning person - I do better work in the morning, I like the quiet and calm hum of the city before everyone wakes up, and perhaps most importantly, I find myself feeling as though the day is wasted and there’s fundamentally no use in continuing if I get up past like, nine.
Uh-oh! That’s not good!
The day is still chugging right along, even if I haven’t participated in it yet. Having had plenty of early-early morning pastry jobs, that wasn’t always true. The day would have very much gone in the direction of no time for croissants to proof, empty pastry cases, and angry chefs. But now? As I lazily await beginning law school, that’s very rarely the case. I can, for the first time in a very long time, truly relax most days. Do I actually? Jury is out.
In an honest effort to slow my roll, I am eating cobbler for breakfast today. I’m digging into warm blueberries, I’m scooping through airy toasted cornmeal biscuits, I’m pouring half-and-half on top because I ran out of heavy cream making said toasted cornmeal biscuits. I’m feeling as though it’s important for me to tell you that I don’t typically buy half-and-half, I quite simply did not read labels at the grocery store while I was intending to buy heavy cream two weeks ago.
There’s toasted cornmeal in the biscuits, because I love corn and blueberries together, and corn in dessert in general. I’ve made corn pastry cream, laced it through with wild Maine blueberries and piped it into yeasted doughnuts. I’ve made corn ice-cream topped with compote. I’ve steeped and squeezed cobs for the sake of pure corn flavor and I’ve put enough butter on my ears of corn that it borderline could be considered dessert.*
*My family is well-aware of my butter-forks. These consist of at least a tablespoon of butter, probably more, mashed into a fork to be an ideal corn-buttering-apparatus. It can remain on the side of your plate to individually and heavily butter every bite. Please try it. This might be my most stood-behind take.
Frozen fruit will work fine in this cobbler if you’re in a pinch. I like Wyman’s wild blueberries, and always buy them in the big bag for the sake of my wallet, but also for the sake of being able to make cobbler at the drop of a hat! Do they truly have more antioxidants in them as they promise on the packaging? I have not seen fit to Google that - but we’re all seeing the fallout of false promises with prebiotic soda brand Poppi getting sued. Turns out, even healthy soda won’t heal your gut! Who coulda thought. Can’t keep me away from my root beer Olipop though.
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blueberry cobbler with toasted cornmeal biscuits
filling
4 1/2 cup blueberries (frozen will work) (550g)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (15g)
1/3 cup sugar (67g)
Lemon zest
topping
1/4 cups cornmeal (45g)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (150g)
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon sugar (16g)
2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder (10g)
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter - cubed (90g)
3/4 cup heavy cream, cold
Egg for egg wash, optional
directions
Preheat oven to 375F.
Mix blueberries, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 cup sugar and a couple pinches of lemon zest. Pour into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish.
Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Toast cornmeal until it smells nutty and set aside to cool.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cooled toasted cornmeal in a medium bowl. Using your fingers, quickly smash the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles a coarse meal. Drizzle in the heavy cream and toss until lightly combined.
Make a few discs out of the dough that are about 1/2” thick (I made about 6). Arrange on top of the blueberries. Egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar and flaky salt, if you want.
Bake until the topping is browned and the juices are bubbling up thickly around them around 40 minutes - though with frozen blueberries I let it go for about an hour. Let cool slightly.
Serve warm, drizzled with cream or topped with vanilla ice cream.
side notes
Here are other things I like about mornings:
The NYT crossword. I’ve done it every day so far this year (sorry).
Black coffee made with our Moccamaster and the ability to pour multiple cups from the glass carafe, like I’m sitting in a diner.
I’ve been recognizing a lack of consistent protein in my diet so I’ve been making shakes with Ritual protein powder - it’s the only one I’ve tried where the vanilla flavor hasn’t been….revolting. Plus they test for all sorts of contaminants, which I appreciate in the highly unregulated supplement market.