![Flag Cake](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/05/29/dining/em-icebox-cake-copy/em-icebox-cake-mediumThreeByTwo440.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
Flag Cake
Erin Jeanne McDowell
1285 ratings with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars
1,285
45 minutes, plus overnight chilling
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Place a piece of parchment paper on a small rimmed baking sheet or large plate.
In a food processor, pulse together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pulse in butter just until mixture looks like small pebbles. Drizzle in buttermilk and cream, and pulse just to combine.
Transfer to a lightly floured surface and pat dough together, incorporating any stray or dry pieces. Using a spoon, scoop off 2-inch pieces of dough and roll into balls (you should end up with about 10). Transfer dough to baking sheet or plate and flatten balls to ¾-inch thick; wrap with plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes, and up to 8 hours.
Meanwhile, heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, toss together fruit, sugar to taste, and tapioca. Let sit for 20 minutes to hydrate tapioca, then scrape into a 2½-quart gratin dish or 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
Top with biscuits, then brush biscuit tops with remaining 1 tablespoon cream. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar, and bake until dark golden on top and fruit is bubbling in the middle, about 1 hour, rotating halfway through. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Buttermilk freezes well. I always buy it by the quart, then freeze what remains in one-cup amounts. It does separate a bit upon thawing; just whisk before adding to a recipe.
Where I live (Ireland) as in most of Europe we weigh everything so I am grateful when the NYT supplies weights. I am often mystified (and a little frustrated!) however when one ingredient is suddenly given in cups-here it's the quantity of fruit, given as 10 cups. Why the inconsistency? Ironically this is the one item it would be sensible to supply the weight for so that one doesn't have to laboriously potion out 10 cups of fruit.
I did not have buttermilk so I substituted cream for the buttermilk, and then I eliminated the baking soda to account for the change in acidity (something I learned from making biscuit dough). It was wonderful.
I just made peach cobbler with frozen organic Costco peaches. Tasted just like fresh!
I mostly use frozen fruit in cobblers because I tend to make cobblers more in the fall and winter when fresh fruits are a bit limited (except for pears and apples). I've used frozen peaches, frozen cherries, and frozen mixed berries in cobblers. No need to defrost, just dump the bag of fruit in at the point you're mixing the fruit, thickener, and sweetener.
To answer Heather: different fruits have different densities. A given weight in blueberries, say, would be a very different volume from the same weight of diced peaches. Since the amount of fruit in a cobbler must fill a given volume, it is more practical to measure in cups. If you make a lot of cobblers, you could always measure each time you use a different fruit, at the same time weighing and recoding the weight. Then, in the future, when you use that fruit, you could weigh it.
Just clabber some milk whenever you need buttermilk. I think it's one tablespoon of vinegar to one cup of milk. Let rest ten minutes. Or buy a can of the powdered stuff. It tastes good and lasts forever in the fridge.
Some of you may say "ick", but, for baking purposes, I find buttermilk to be just as good up to one month past the stated expiration date. Give it a shake before you pour and measure.
Buttermilk is available dry in envelopes, box of 4. Keep on shelf so always ready for biscuits, pancakes, waffles. Makes baked goods tender.
My mom used to make buttermilk with regular milk and lemon juice. This recipe looks like the cobbler she would make. Lovely!
I made this recipe with fresh peaches from a local orchard, and while it is good, I found the biscuits a bit dense. I believe more liquid is required, and the next time I will likely use my old stand-by drop biscuit recipe which calls for a full cup of buttermilk.
As one old cooking mentor told me, in respect to biscuits, when I first started cooking, "honey, you want that biscuit dough to shimmy and shake; it should worry you." Or something like that (25+ years ago).
This was so marvelous I think I will lay my life long war with pie crusts aside forever, and only make cobblers. As some others have suggested I added a tap of cinnamon to the fruit and a squeeze of lemon, plus some lemon zest to the biscuits. About 3/4 of the fruit was blueberries— I had a couple peaches, an apricot and a cup or 2 of cherries I threw in also. My husband usually turns up his nose at fruit desserts but he loves this !
I wonder if frozen fruit would work in this recipe. Frozen fruit is often better than fresh out of season. One thing I would definitely do is to peel peaches and other fuzzy fruits if using the fresh fruit. With the price of fresh fruit nowadays, I might have to settle for the artificial kind.
Wonder if we can substitute tapioca with corn starch?
Francisco, One can sub corn starch for the minute tapioca BUT keep in mind the chemistry of cornstarch. It breaks down (loses thickening) if cooked for a long time or mixed with acidic elements or frozen and then thawed. If you do decide to use cornstarch in this recipe, use about half as much as the minute tapioca. But the tapioca option is my long time fav for berry and stone fruit cobblers or pies. Give it a try!
Used about a quart of fresh blueberries, a pint of fresh blackberries and four c. frozen cherries. Followed Dunrie's suggestion, in the absence of buttermilk, to use 3/4 c heavy cream and no baking soda. The simplicity and beauty and deliciousness of this dessert delighted 6 of us at the supper table. (Served tepid with big blobs of HD's vanilla bean ice cream too.)
Made the recipe to the T, came out great. Fruit was half local blueberries and half frozen peaches. Did not defrost the peaches. My one tip is to grind the minute tapioca in a spice grinder or similar to a powder. Otherwise, you end up with tapioca chunks (which may or may it be desired)
I rarely buy heavy cream ahead, so made with powderee buttermilk reconstituted and half the baking powder subbed with baking soda. Cornstarch instead of flour in the blueberry mix. Needed additional flour in the dough as it is currently quite humid here. Simple but great recipe that is adaptable to what you have on hand.
If you don't want to buy a full container of buttermilk, I suggest buying powdered buttermilk. It lasts forever in the fridge, and all containers come with instructions for how much to add to a liquid.
Great recipe! I added the zest of a whole lemon and the juice of half a lemon to the blueberries which brought out the flavor a bit more. Also added two more tablespoons of butter and a pinch more salt to the dough which made for a fluffier biscuit with a hint of salt that enhanced the sweet/tartness of the blueberry mixture.
This is a good recipe! IMHO, it’s better with more salt.
Added 1/4 cup almond meal, gave a nice flavour. Use lemon juice to create the buttermilk, again adds flavor.
Newbie/knucklehead mistake to avoid: reserve the extra tablespoon of cream, don’t put it in food processor. Also/related, it’s advisable to read the entire recipe before starting. (Face palm.)
The recipe is OK, but the biscuits are too heavy and itneeds more fruit than 10 c.
I used frozen tart cherries. It tasted good, but next time I’ll use 1 c. tapioca because they gave off a lot of juice when defrosted.
I made this using 1 for 1 King Arthur gluten-free flour for a 4th of July gathering. I used pitted, halved fresh cherries, blueberries, and peaches, and added around 2/3 cup sugar and a squeeze of lemon. It was so deliciously fruity, and the biscuits were very good despite the lack of gluten. Everyone loved it, and some requested the recipe. Reheated leftovers for breakfast were even better next day!
Beautiful and tasty cobbler! Buttermilk made with whole milk and a splash of lemon juice. Used mixed fruits and half the sugar in biscuits. Important to put them in fridge before baking. New favorite recipe!
Can I use this recipe for apple cobbler??
Love this recipe. The biscuits are super easy and taste great. I like to use a mix of fruit (easily measured with 7 c and 3.5 c plastic storage containers): raspberries, blackberries, fresh rhubarb, strawberries, apples and dried cherries.
If don’t have buttermilk, use cream and eliminate baking soda
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