“Tis the season indeed for all the great foods of summer, farm-fresh and abundant at farmers’ markets now.  And while I’m thrilled to have farm-fresh corn and tomatoes all the time; new potatoes, fresh dug carrots and more, my penchant is for sweets and that’s when I make a beeline for local fruits and berries at the markets.  Last week I found local peaches at the Winslow Farm stand at the Cumberland Farmer’s Market. When I saw they had peaches I scooped up several pounds of this year’s most elusive fruit, made so because of the drought.

Reports have been that this season will not be kind to peach growers, though the farmers at Winslow Farm along Route 100 in West Falmouth said they have an abundant supply.

Peach cobbler

Peach cobbler

Putting them in a pie shell or in ice cream is the usual destination for peaches, but I actually prefer  cobblers.

There are several styles of cobbler:  fruit is covered with a biscuit topping; sunk into a batter or baked deep dish in a rich pastry casing.

Blackberry cobbler fresh out of the oven

Blackberry cobbler fresh out of the oven

This week I opted for the deep-dish style cobbler.  And I found several inspirations from chef and cookbook author Edna Lewis in her three books Taste of Country Cooking, In Pursuit of Flavor and The Gift of Southern Cooking; I made both the peach cobbler and one with blackberries.

My version is a blending of several of her cobbler recipes.  What’s unique about them is the use of crushed sugar cubes to replace ordinary granulated sugar. This offers an amazing texture to both the filling and the pastry dough in that the little flecks of hard sugar from crushing the cubes are like eating candy straight off the bark, so to speak.

Serving of blackberry deep-dish cobbler

Serving of blackberry deep-dish cobbler

I used to see boxes of sugar cubes at the supermarket.  But after looking at Hannaford (I didn’t try Shaw’s), they’re not stocked there.  Whole Foods had what was labeled as European style sugar cubes, offered for $6.99, a lot to pay for 12 ounces of sugar.  Most 4-pound boxes of sugar cost under $3.

I offer two cobbler recipes: one for blackberries (different from  last week’s) and another for peaches.  Both, however, are adapted, with some changes, from Ms. Lewis’s books.

Both cobblers are made with a lard pastry, but you can replace it with half butter and half lard or an all-butter crust. But I suggest going for the lard crust because the special flakey texture of an all-lard crust goes so well with these cobbler fillings. Fresh lard is available from the butchers at Rosemont or the Farm Stand.   You can also replace the crushed sugar cubes with granulated sugar, but give it a try—it’s unique.  The easiest way to crush the cubes is to put them in a  plastic bag and crush the cubes with a rolling pin or mallet.  Opt for various sizes of crushed cubes—some very small, almost granulated and others  slightly bigger similar in size to rock salt.

Scoop out the peach cobbler into a shallow bowl to serve

Scoop out the peach cobbler into a shallow bowl to serve

Another interesting step in the peach cobbler was to tuck in the trimmings of leftover dough in the peach filling.  This gives it a slightly crunchy texture and helps to thicken the mixture.